Larita Anthony

Larita Anthony is an experienced professional executive in family enrichment, children services and community engagement. For over a decade, Larita has been driven by creating sustainable safe environments for underserved populations and communities of color. Currently she serves as a Public Service Administrator in the State of Illinois for the Department of Children and Family Services. In this role, she excels at leadership management, family crisis interventions, child welfare advocacy and operational excellence. Praised as a visionary, creativity, drive and teamwork are Larita’s greatest strengths. She thrives on all kinds of challenges, especially those that expand the cultural competence of experts in the public and private sectors.

This driven leader built her skills in previous roles that supported large-scale family and community programs. At various nonprofits and in local government positions at the Chicago Housing Authority, Department of Labor and Chicago Public Schools, she quickly became a wellknown advocate to improve self-sufficiency conditions for communities of color. From grant management to program development, Larita created an array of capabilities to allocate the necessary financial and technical resources to support the the city of Chicago residents.

In 2015 LaRita was chosen as a keynote speaker for “The Alumni of Color Conference”, at Harvard University in the Department of Education. The session included the benefits of comprehensive Social Emotional Learning. She presented her proven best practices which focused on recognizing and managing emotions, developing positive relationships, and reinforcing positive behavior for families and children in low-income environments. Larita was recognized by Harvard leadership due to her extraordinary commitment to this mission.

In 2004, LaRita Anthony received her B.A in Sociology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She furthered her education at the University of Illinois at Chicago by receiving her Master’s Degree in Public Administration in 2011. She currently resides in Chicago where she also serves as a mentor to youth in the West side communities.