Prudence Beidler Carr

(She/her/hers)

American Bar Association

Director, Center on Children and the Law

Prudence Beidler Carr is the Director of the American Bar Association’s Center on Children and the Law in Washington DC, where she manages a team of attorneys and core staff who work on children’s law projects throughout the country. Prudence provides substantive expertise on Center projects related to federal legislation, child welfare and immigration, and legal representation. Prudence joined the ABA Center in July 2016 and brings a background in government, nonprofit management, and children’s advocacy to her role. 

Prudence has worked on numerous children’s advocacy projects in child welfare, early care and education, and afterschool program development both domestically and internationally. Immediately before joining the ABA Center, Prudence lived in Mexico City where she partnered with JUCONI, a Mexican organization that helps street-living youth reintegrate with their families. Previously, Prudence worked in the General Counsel’s Office at the Department of Homeland Security, where she managed class action, appellate and Supreme Court litigation and advised senior leaders on the legal effects of immigration and national security policies. Prudence also served as the office’s Deputy Managing Counsel, in which she helped conduct strategic planning across all DHS legal offices, encompassing approximately 1,800 attorneys. 

Prudence was a law clerk for District Judge Paul S. Diamond in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and she has served on several public interest and education boards, including the Insight Center for Community Economic Development in California and the Law Board at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law. Prudence has an undergraduate degree from Harvard University and a JD from Northwestern.

Why Prudence joined the collaborative: 

Because I have been inspired by the other members and Aubrey’s leadership in committing to have honest and challenging conversations about race and child welfare in a way that grounds the work in the human connections that are necessary to create real change.

What Prudence can leverage towards the Collaborative’s goal:

We can continue to hold ourselves accountable to the promises we make within the Collaborative; We can strive to use the Collaborative as a seeding ground for discussing topics that we can then bring to a larger audience outside the Collaborative partners; We can bring the legal perspective to the Collaborative and ensure that system change focused on understanding the relationship between race and child welfare connects with the legal field directly. 

Lisette Burton

(She/her/hers)

The Association of Children’s Residential and Community Services

Chief Policy and Practice Advisor

Lisette joined ACRC in 2020 after serving on the board of directors as the Public Policy Committee Chair for several years. In addition to leading ACRC’s advocacy efforts, Lisette builds coalitions and strategic partnerships and she utilizes her experience and skills to provide expert-level guidance, policy analysis, practice support, facilitation, strategic planning, and consultation services to ACRC’s membership and non-member systems, agencies, and associations.

Previously, Lisette was the Vice President of National Advocacy and Public Policy for the national nonprofit Boys Town, where she advocated for effective federal and state policies related to child welfare, juvenile justice, education, and health. Lisette’s foundational experiences are in direct care, and she joined Boys Town in 2007 as a Family Teacher caring for girls in foster care and boys committed to the juvenile justice system in a family-style, community-based, therapeutic residential program. Prior to Boys Town, Lisette worked in North Carolina as a program director at a therapeutic residential wilderness program and later as a community organizer focused on quality early childhood education and parental involvement in schools.

Lisette serves on several national policy committees, coalitions, and working groups and she is a mayoral appointee to the Washington, DC Juvenile Justice Advisory Group. Lisette regularly facilitates conversations and shares policy and practice insight and expertise with local, state, and national audiences.

Lisette received her B.S. in Science from the Eberly College of Science at Penn State University. She earned her J.D. at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law, where she was a Leadership Scholar and Schweitzer Fellow, a pro bono law clerk representing children with special needs, a student attorney at the National Association of the Deaf, and a legislative intern with the U.S. Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee

Why Lisette joined the collaborative: 

My calling has always been to do what I can to help children and youth meet their potential and thrive, but the impact of systemic and institutional racism has been evident in every community where I have lived and worked. To make a difference in individual lives, it will take concerted action to build new, equitable systems, and I believe in the Collaborative’s lived-expert-guided approach towards making the vision of a transformed child welfare system a reality.

What Lisette can leverage towards the Collaborative’s goal:

I firmly believe that those closest to the problem should help shape the solution, and I hope to leverage a network of community-based organizations across the country who will partner with youth and families to model and drive change on the ground.  

Alexandra Citrin

(She/her/hers)

Center for the Study of Social Policy

Senior Associate

is a Senior Associate at the Center for the Study of Social Policy and has 15+ years of experience in child and family public policy and direct practice. She currently leads CSSP’s child welfare and prevention policy portfolio, providing overall direction for CSSP’s work. She is an expert in child welfare and prevention policy and practice and its effect on communities of color, LGBTQ+ youth, and immigrant families. Alex advances CSSP’s policy agenda through direct work with federal, state, local, and community partners. This includes managing CSSP’s work with Mathematica to support technical assistance to HHS agencies to advance equity, state-specific engagement to understand the complexities and requirements of the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA), identify opportunities within the bill to advance equity, and develop and implement state Title IV-E Prevention Plans; and working directly with state and community-based agencies to build their capacity to advance anti-racist policy and practice. She currently leads the team providing intensive technical assistance across the country to states developing and implementing prevention continuums and is working in multiple jurisdictions with leadership to transform existing child welfare systems to be anti-racist. Her system-reform work also includes providing technical assistance to states and community-based organizations on utilizing racial equity impact assessments to drive change, state and local child welfare systems through child welfare systems operating under federal consent decree, the Infant Toddler Court Team Program, and the Quality Improvement Center on Family-Centered Reunification. Her policy expertise includes child welfare system and finance reform, prevention, and immigration—with a focus on using frontline practice—knowledge to inform equity-focused policymaking. In addition, she supports organizations in building their organization capacity and knowledge on key racial equity concepts and strategies to mitigate and undo systemic racism. Prior to joining CSSP, she was a family advocate at the Center for Family Representation, Inc. in New York, where she engaged in direct practice with parents and families involved in the child welfare system. Alexandra was a Child Welfare Scholar at the University of Michigan where she earned a master’s degree from the Graduate School of Social Work and a master’s degree in public policy from the Ford School.

Hope Cooper

(She/her/hers)

True North Group

Founding Partner

Hope Cooper is Founding Partner of True North Group.  She brings twenty-five years of public policy experience focused on improving outcomes and opportunities for vulnerable populations. She directs the national CHAMPS campaign to improve foster parenting policies and advises major foundations on child welfare policy and practice. 

Before founding True North Group, Hope served as Vice President for Public Policy at Child Trends, a child development research center in Washington, D.C.  Prior to that, she was a senior program officer at The Pew Charitable Trusts where she designed and directed public policy initiatives, including Pew’s foster care reform initiative. 

Hope spent ten years on Capitol Hill and held senior policy positions, including on the Senate Finance Committee and Senate Special Committee on Aging where she steered multiple pieces of legislation through the policy process.  Hope has also worked in a senior government relations position at the national headquarters of the American Red Cross.  Hope is a reform-minded advocate for children and families with a proven record of achieving policy change. She has testified before Congress and has been quoted in multiple national news outlets. Hope is based in Seattle.

Why Hope joined the Collaborative:

Systemic racism is a significant problem in child welfare. As a child advocate, there’s nothing more important than the mission of the collaborative, which is to bring equity and justice to children and families who have been directly impacted by harmful policies and practices. By joining the collaborative, I hope to be part of the movement to end racism in child welfare and advance policies that help families heal and thrive.  

What Hope can leverage towards the Collaborative’s goal?

My goal is to support all aspects of the Collaborative in any way I can.  In particular, I hope to contribute to the development of policy solutions and participate in the advocacy efforts to advance them.

Aubrey Edwards-Luce

(She/her/hers)

Sayra and Neil Meyerhoff Center for Families, Children and the Courts

Executive Director

Aubrey Edwards-Luce is a zealous advocate for children, youth, and families. Before becoming the Executive Director at the Sayra and Neil Meyerhoff Center for Families, Children and the Courts, Aubrey was the Vice President for Child Welfare and Youth Justice policy at First Focus on Children. There, she advocated to make children a priority in federal legislative and fiscal policies. Aubrey launched the CWARE Collaborative in 2020. Prior to joining First Focus on Children, Aubrey was a senior policy attorney at the Children’s Law Center (CLC) in Washington, D.C.  Aubrey started working policy after she had served for 3 years as a guardian ad litem attorney at CLC. Even after joining the policy team, Aubrey maintained a smaller caseload of family court cases where she represented the best interests of children in abuse and neglect, custody, guardianship, and adoption proceedings in D.C. Superior Court.  

Before she graduated from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law, Aubrey completed her master’s degree in social work and gained primary child abuse prevention experience working at the St. Louis Crisis Nursery. There, she cared for children at risk of abuse and neglect and provided crisis counseling for their parents and guardians. She also worked as a Research Assistant and the Annual Report Coordinator at the Center for Violence and Injury Prevention.

Aubrey lives in Prince George’s County Maryland with her husband, her cat, her preschool daughter and her teenaged ahijada (“goddaughter”).

Why Aubrey joined the collaborative:

I joined the Collaborative because I don’t want to be complicit in the perpetuation of injustice and harm to children and families of color in a system that is intended to protect children who have been abused and neglected. I want to be a part of a cooperative effort to make child welfare system policies that advances child well-being and racial justice and centers the expertise and experiences of people who have survived the child welfare system.

What Aubrey can leverage towards the Collaborative’s goal:

My time doing federal advocacy has allowed me to develop connections to several coalitions that focus on resources and services for children beyond the child welfare system. I can access their networks and expertise as needed. I am also able to connect the collaborative to state child welfare policy experts in the State Policy Advocacy and Reform Center. Personally, I have group facilitation skills, policy strategizing skills, public speaking skills, and legal analysis and research skills that I can leverage towards the Collaborative’s goals. 

Lisette Orellana Engel

(She/her/hers)

The National Crittenton Foundation

Senior Director of Policy, Advocacy and Youth Engagement

Lisette Orellana Engel is Senior Director of Policy, Advocacy and Youth Engagement at National Crittenton. Being unapologetic and bold, Lisette has navigated both government and nonprofit spaces, and prior to joining the organization, was the Executive Director of a nonprofit that provided housing and case management services to formerly homeless young moms. As a daughter of immigrants, she advocates for immigrant families in her community and for services for children with special needs in the school system. Lisette holds a Bachelor’s in Communication Studies from UMUC, and a Master’s in Public Administration from the University of Baltimore. She lives in Germantown, MD, is a mom to 2 young adults and 4 fur babies. She enjoys lively conversations in her many book clubs, discovering new wineries, and early morning sessions on the Peloton. 

Why Lisette joined the Collaborative:

I joined the collaborative to support and advance the conversation around the disparities that currently exist in the child welfare space and to continue to include how young mothers of color are impacted. 

What Lisette can leverage towards the Collaborative’s goal?

Through our work in national advocacy and partnerships, National Crittenton will continue to share and engage in best practices, research, and collaborations that can be helpful to advancing the goals of the Collaborative. In addition, we bring a gender lens and continue to remind folx to engage young mothers, particularly young mothers of color. 

Jeanette Pai-Espinosa

(She/her/hers)

The National Crittenton Foundation

President

Jeannette began her work advocating for issues of importance to young women and gender expansive young people in the mid 70’s and continues her passion for gender justice through her work at National Crittenton. A firm believer in the “nothing about us without us” practice she is dedicated to following the leadership of those most impacted by all forms of oppression and the intersections of them. 

Jeannette leads National Crittenton a 137-year-old national advocacy organization, which is also the convener of the 25 members of the Crittenton family of agencies, providing services in 31 states and the District of Columbia. Additionally, Crittenton has partners on the ground in nearly every state including Hawai’i and Alaska and various tribal nations. Her career spans more than forty years of work in advocacy, education, public policy, strategic communication, program development, and direct service delivery at the local, state and national levels. Jeannette was the formerly the Director of the National Girls Initiative – Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, U. S. Department of Justice. Additionally, she was a member of: the Advisory Committee of Rights4Girls; the Advisory Committee for Women’s Services – SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the Advisory Committee of the National Center on Domestic Violence, Trauma & Mental Health. Currently, she is a member of the Advisory Committee for the hope and grace fund of philosophy inc; a Steering Committee Member for the Georgetown Law Center on Poverty and Inequality and the National Black Women’s Justice Institute TraumaInformed Learning Network for Girls of Color; and member of the Board of Directors of Rung for Women. She was also Chair of the National Foster Care Coalition for more than 8 years before its closure in 2017. 

Jeannette holds a master’s degree of education in student development theory, counseling and administration. She and her husband are the parents of four “grown” children ages 35–41.

Shadi Houshyar

(She/her/hers)

Center for the Study of Social Policy

Senior Associate

Shadi Houshyar is a Senior Associate at the Center for the Study of Social Policy (CSSP), where she is focused on equity-driven policies to support young children and families and with a primary focus on child health, childhood trauma, toxic stress, and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs).

At CSSP, Shadi has overseen the successful implementation of a universal pediatric intervention for infants, birth to six months, aimed at promoting protective factors, addressing social determinants of health, and enhancing parent agency as part of community approaches to preventing and mitigating toxic stress. Prior to joining CSSP, she served as the Director of Early Childhood and Child Welfare Initiatives at Families USA. In this role, Shadi led policy development on the national and state-level aimed at leveraging health systems to promote the healthy development of children, including preventing and mitigating ACEs, ensuring access to trauma-informed care, and promoting resiliency in young children and families.

Shadi also has experience working on federal child welfare policy, with a focus on identifying opportunities to address the health and behavioral health challenges of children and youth impacted by the child welfare system.  This includes serving as Vice President for Child Welfare Policy at First Focus, a national bipartisan children’s advocacy organization, and Director of First Focus’s State Policy Advocacy and Reform Center (SPARC), a national resource center for state-based advocates, aimed at improving outcomes for children and families involved with the child welfare system by building the capacity of, and connections between, state child welfare advocates.

Shadi received her Ph.D. in developmental psychology from Yale University where her research focused on identifying factors that foster resilience in children exposed to trauma. Shadi sits on the Families USA Health Equity and System Transformation Task Force which convenes key national and state level health equity and system transformation thought leaders to develop and prioritize health equity-centered system transformation policies and is an InCK (Integrated Care for Kids) Marks National Advisory Board member.

Why Shadi joined the collaborative: I joined the Collaborative because it serves as an important space to come together with child welfare partners and those with lived experience to push the conversation on advancing racial equity and anti-racism in the field.

What Shadi can leverage towards the Collaborative’s goal: I can leverage my expertise in equity-driven and anti-racist policies that can meaningfully support children and families to contribute to our shared goals for advancing equity in child welfare.  

Jaia Peterson Lent

(She/her/hers)

Generations United

Deputy Executive Director/ Co-Director, National Center on Grandfamilies

Jaia Peterson Lent is the Deputy Executive Director at Generations United where she has worked since 2000. Generations United’s mission is to improve the lives of children, youth and older people through intergenerational collaboration, public policies and programs. Lent is a co-director of the National Center on Grandfamilies, a leading voice for families headed by grandparents or other relatives. She is a trusted voice on Capitol Hill on issues related to grandfamilies and intergenerational cohesion, having testified before the U.S. Senate Special Committee on Aging and in several briefings. 

She serves as co-chair of the federal Advisory Council to Support Grandparents Raising Grandchildren.  She is a sought-after speaker, nationally recognized columnist and blogger and respected media resource who has been quoted multiple media outlets including the Washington Post, U.S. News and World Report, and the Associated Press.  In 2017 Lent was named one of the Top 50 Influencers in Aging by Next Avenue. Under her leadership, legislation passed to support grandfamilies in areas ranging from housing to family caregiving to child welfare. Lent leads the national effort to set a unified agenda and coordinates the work of national organizations serving and advocating for grandfamilies. She oversees the National Center on Grandfamilies’ work to provide technical assistance to states on kinship issues. 

Lent received her Masters of Social Work from Syracuse University. She is a licensed social worker who has worked in Child Protective Services, refugee resettlement, and in many other capacities with individuals and families from a variety of cultural backgrounds.

Meryl Levine

(She/her/hers)

Children’s Trust Fund Alliance

Senior Associate

Meryl is the lead on multiple parent partnership projects including the Birth Parent National Network (BPNN), the Birth and Foster Parent Partnership (BFPP) and the Casey Family Programs Birth Parent Advisory Committee (BPAC). She is actively engaged in the Alliance’s training technical assistance activities, including helping organizations develop parent advisory councils and other roles for parent partners, leading the Strategic Sharing trainings and the Better Together trainings.

 Meryl has more than 30 years of experience managing child maltreatment prevention, family support and out-of-home placement programs using a strengths-based approach and helping to build protective factors in families. She has directed many national and state parent partnership initiatives and conferences to engage parents as partners in programmatic and policy decisions to improve services and outcomes for families. She has expertise in providing training and technical assistance to community groups, organizations, programs and service systems to build capacity and successfully implement strategies and systems reforms to improve outcomes for children and families. In addition to her work with the Alliance, Meryl teaches a course each quarter in the graduate school of social work at University of Southern California. 

Meryl has a master’s in social work administration from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH. She holds a BA in social work and a BS in education from Pennsylvania State University. Her top priorities are her daughter and her husband.

Marla McDaniel

(She/her/hers)

Senior Fellow

Urban Institute

Marla McDaniel is a senior fellow in the Center on Labor, Human Services, and Population at the Urban Institute. Before joining Urban, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the Columbia University School of Social Work. McDaniel has researched, written about, and spoken about racial disparities; low-income children, youth, and families; and the programs and policy environments that touch families’ lives. She is interested in the relationships between vulnerabilities and in how inequality across multiple domains— including health, education, and employment—has a compounding effect on overall health and well-being.

McDaniel earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Swarthmore College and worked as a case manager for youth in foster care before earning a doctorate in human development and social policy from Northwestern University.

Jim McKay

(He/him/his)

Prevent Child Abuse West Virginia

State Coordinator

Jim has been the State Director of Prevent Child Abuse WV, a project of TEAM for WV Children since 2007, after joining the organization as Public Policy Director in 2005. TEAM’s mission is to promote safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments thereby eliminating child abuse and neglect in all its forms.

Previously, Jim was Program Coordinator of Time Out Youth Shelter, a crisis shelter for runaway and homeless youth for 5 years. From 1994-2000, Jim held various leadership positions for The Education Alliance, a non-profit promoting private support for public education. Jim served as Legislative Assistant to the Speaker of the WV House of Delegates from 1991-1994.

Jim also serves as Public Policy Director for the Children’s Trust Alliance. He has also provided services in leadership development, policy advocacy, strategic planning and messaging in West Virginia, Alabama, Colorado, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Wisconsin and nationally. Jim has presented at numerous state and national conferences on topics including child abuse prevention, positive community norms, policy advocacy, strategic messaging, reframing, infant safe sleep, Strengthening Families, parent leadership and media relations.

Jim is Chairman of the WV Legislative Action Team for Children & Families, which includes over 25 organizations working on behalf of children in WV. Jim is on the Board of Directors for the WV Center on Budget and Policy. Nationally, Jim serves as a member of the National Child Abuse Coalition.

Jim graduated from Tenn. Tech. University with a Bachelor’s of Science Degree in Political Science in 1991. Jim’s proudest achievement is being father of two great sons, Jake and Jonah.

Steven Olender

(He/him/his)

Think of Us

Senior Policy Associate

Steven Olender is a Senior Policy Associate at the Children’s Defense Fund, focused on reforming Federal child welfare policy to strengthen families and promote well-being and resiliency in children and youth. He has worked to enact and implement federal child welfare legislation, including the Family First Transition Act and the Supporting Foster Youth and Families Through the Pandemic Act. Steven co-leads the Child Welfare and Mental Health Coalition, a working group of national, state, and local advocacy organizations dedicated to the well-being of children in the child welfare system. Prior to joining CDF, he worked for local organizations dedicated to supporting children and families impacted by family violence in Austin, Texas. He has won three superhero costume contests but should have won six.

Why Steven joined the collaborative: Race equity has always been a cornerstone of CDF’s work. We were excited for the opportunity to have a space to focus explicitly on the underlying causes of racial inequity in child welfare. The Collaborative is an important place to build muscle memory always to consider a policy’s racial implications with other organizations that shared our commitment to anti-racist system transformation. As the Collaborative developed, we grew more and more excited to partner with experts with lived experience to find ways to address our system’s problems that center their expertise and solutions.

What Steven can leverage towards the Collaborative’s goal: Expertise on the child welfare policy landscape and the systems and structures for child well-being, particularly as it regards child welfare financing. Skill at navigating the legislative and administrative process for child welfare reform. CDF leads the Child Welfare and Mental Health Coalition, an informal working group of more than 200 organizations dedicated to improving the child welfare system.

Angel Petite

(She/her/hers)

FosterClub

Senior Policy Manager

Angel has 10 year’s experience engaging young people with lived experience in foster care in opportunities to drive system change – through education, storytelling, meetings with policymakers, Congressional briefings and hearings and supporting the development of collective recommendations. She is a descendant of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. Angel earned her bachelor’s degree in Political Science & Communicating Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Superior. She has previously volunteered as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) within her local community.

Why Angel joined the collaborative?

FosterClub knows that transformational change for children, youth and families cannot happen unless we center and engage young people who have experienced foster care. Black, Indigenous, LGBTQ+ & Two-Spirit young people and families are disproportionately harmed in the child welfare system due to inherent beliefs and ideas carried from the system’s founding. We need to examine the policies and practices which continue to cause harm and propose new policies and practices to reduce harm, address bias and discrimination and support children, youth and families. Angel is personally committed in her own journey to becoming anti-racist, and building a more just and equitable future in partnership with lived experience leaders.  

What can Angel and FosterClub do to leverage the Collaborative’s goals?

We are currently supporting Lived Experience (LEx) leaders serving as part of the collaborative coordinating committee. We can elevate existing collective LEx recommendations and gather further insight from our network of young people who have experienced foster care and out of home care. We will continue to share our organizations work on FosterJEDI (Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion) as it is helpful to the collaborative. We can also support by continuing to share resources and strategies for successful, meaningful engagement of young people with lived experience.

Keri Richmond

(She/her/hers)

American Academy of Pediatrics

Manager, Child Welfare Policy

Keri Richmond is a passionate advocate for children and families in both her personal and professional life. After being in Ohio’s foster care system off and on for four years, and having a chaotic and traumatic childhood, as an adult Richmond has become an active leader for foster care reform. Richmond credits her success to all of the caring adults who stepped into her life, calling mentors “a magical wand for foster care.” 

In 2020, Keri joined the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) to serve as the organization’s first-ever, Manager of Child Welfare Policy in Washington, D.C. In addition, Keri also serves as the Executive Director of the nonprofit, FosterStrong, an organization comprised solely of alumni of the foster care system. FosterStrong is dedicated to changing the negative narrative surrounding foster care through storytelling.   

Prior to her work with AAP and FosterStrong, Richmond worked as a lobbyist in the policy shop at Arnold & Porter, focusing on child welfare, education, technology, and defense policy. Richmond attended Kent State University, where she received a Bachelor of Science degree in Public Relations, served as the Director of Government Affairs, and interned for the nonprofit, Together We Rise, to change the way vulnerable youth experience foster care. In University, Richmond held over 12 leadership positions and found a voice to advocate for others using her foster care experience as a motivating force. Her advocacy led her to Washington, D.C., where she served as an intern for the United States Senate and the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute. 

Richmond has given a TEDx talk on her foster care experience and has presented her research and policy recommendations to Members of Congress and the Obama Administration’s White House Domestic Policy Council. 

Rebecca Robuck

(She/her/hers)

ChildFocus

Director of Policy and Partnerships

Rebecca M. Robuck is a policy expert and champion for young people and their families. As Director of Policy & Partnerships at ChildFocus, she supports people with lived expertise, advocates, policymakers, and philanthropic leaders in their work to make transformative change that improves the lives of children and families. She works on a range of issues including preventing child welfare system involvement, supporting transition age youth, and child welfare financing. Among other projects, she leads the Child Welfare Funders Collaborative and the National Child Abuse Coalition, and she staffs the Youth Transition Funders Group and the Journey to Success Campaign.

Previously, Rebecca was a Legislative Assistant to Congressman Jim Cooper (TN-05), where she handled social welfare issues impacting children and families, with a special emphasis on child welfare. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in History from Davidson College, and Masters degrees in both Public Administration and Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania. Rebecca lives in Bethesda, Maryland, with her husband John and their three daughters and dog.