The Kidvocate Group

Donna is the President and Founder of Mitroff & Associates.  With nearly three decades of experience in the entertainment industry, Donna consults about children's media development, production and policy.  She has served as President of Mediascope, Senior Vice President at Fox Family Worldwide, and Vice President of WQED West, as well as earned producer credits on a number of television shows, movies and specials.  A specialist in the requirements of the Children's Television Act, Donna has helped companies, including Cookie Jar Entertainment, American Greetings, Studio B, Chorion, Cinar, and SDEntertainment, create qualifying shows.  Over the years, she has been a member of numerous advisory committees and children's programming juries, including Hollywood, Health & Society at USC Norman Lear Annenberg School, Children's Television Advisory Committee for Univision, the DIC Educational Advisory Committee, The American Center for Children and Media, NHK's Japan Prize, and the HUMANITAS Prize.  After representing the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences' Children's Programming Peer Group for three terms on the Board of Governors, Donna currently serves as a founding member of the committee that overseas the Fred Rogers Memorial Scholarship.  Among the honors she has received is from Girls Inc. for demonstrating an exceptional commitment to promoting girls' rights and equality. read more

Bobbie writes, teaches, lectures and consults about the social and psychological effects of media and new interactive technology on children, teens and families.  For more than 20 years, she has been advising the media industry, educators, parents, health practitioners and policymakers about using media to children's best advantage.  She is the author of numerous parent guides, articles and fact sheets, including Kaiser Family Foundation's Children, Health and Media Fact Sheet Series.  Her current projects involve promoting quality children's media and empowering youth in the emerging digital media landscape.  A nationally-known media literacy educator, Bobbie is a featured speaker at professional meetings, national organizations, local groups and schools about the role media play in our lives.  She serves on the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Fred Rogers' Memorial Scholarship Blue Ribbon Panel, and as a judge for Cable in the Classroom's Media Smart Research Award Program.  Bobbie received her doctorate from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, and holds two master's degrees, one from Annenberg and the other from University of Michigan.  read more

Becky specializes in new media, critical media literacy, and teaching and learning with popular culture.  She brings to the team expertise in children's television with an eye to new media formats, including video games, websites, online communities, and kid-driven digital media production.  Becky has worked as a production manager for companies producing original content for the web and multimedia museum exhibits.  She earned her doctorate from the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Southern California (USC), and holds two masters' degrees, one in Communication from USC and the other in Teaching from Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles.  After receiving her doctorate, Becky was a postdoctoral researcher with the Digital Media and Learning Hub at the University of California Humanities Research Institute, housed at UC Irvine, where she conducted research on teens' practices of reading and writing in online communities. She is currently co-authoring a book, Teaching Harry Potter: The Power of Imagination in Multicutural Classrooms (Palgrave MacMillan, 2011). She is currently a research fellow at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, where she is conducting research on multimedia literacy.  read more

Vicki brings more than 20 years of experience in the entertainment industry in creative development and production to the consulting group.  After beginning her career at Amblin Entertainment as a Creative Development Associate to Steven Spielberg, she went on to work in various capacities in children's media.  She served as Vice President of Development, Movies and Television at Klasky-Csupo, the animation studio known for Nickelodeon's Rugrats and The Wild Thornberrys.  She also ran Bagdasarian Productions with studio partner Universal Family Entertainment, where she was responsible for projects in television, movies, home video, consumer products, music and new media for the classic property Alvin and the Chipmunks.  Among the companies she has recently served as a consultant are Playhouse Disney, Walt Disney Television Animation, PBSKids, National Geographic, Hasbro/Discovery Channel, Nelvana/Corus, as well as the National Science Foundation.  Vicki served on the Board of Governors of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Children's Programming Peer Group, and currently co-chairs the Academy's Fred Rogers Memorial Scholarship Blue Ribbon Panel.  She holds a master's degree from Harvard University in Technology in Education.  read more

Debbie Heimowitz is an educational consultant and children's media producer. She specializes in technology design across media platforms focused on developing research-based projects that are educational and entertaining for pre-teen audiences. Among her current projects is content analyzing web and mobile apps for Zoodles.com, a company whose mission is to ensure 3 to 8 year-olds' digital experiences are safe while having fun learning.  Debbie began designing and producing educational children's films as an undergrad at UC Berkeley through the ArtsBridge America scholarship program. As an intern with the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, she went on to work at Disney Channel before pursuing her master's degree at Stanford University where she co-created the award-winning Adina's Deck film series. read more