Foundation Welcomes Twelfth Class of Children and Family Fellows

The Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion has select­ed 15 lead­ers for the twelfth class of its Chil­dren and Fam­i­ly Fel­low­ship^®. These women and men — accom­plished lead­ers from the pub­lic, non­prof­it and for-prof­it sec­tors — will use the 21-month Fel­low­ship to work with­in their agen­cies, orga­ni­za­tions and com­mu­ni­ties toward spe­cif­ic, mea­sur­able improve­ments for large num­bers of young peo­ple and fam­i­lies. The new Fel­lows are based in 12 states.

Now in its third decade, the Fel­low­ship is an inten­sive exec­u­tive lead­er­ship pro­gram designed to give more child- and fam­i­ly-serv­ing pro­fes­sion­als the con­fi­dence and com­pe­tence to lead major sys­tem reforms and com­mu­ni­ty change ini­tia­tives. The six women and nine men cho­sen for the 2022–2024 class work in dis­ci­plines from edu­ca­tion to juve­nile jus­tice, child wel­fare and housing.

In addi­tion to spe­cif­ic indi­vid­ual objec­tives, this group of Fel­lows will con­tribute to a shared result. That com­mon end is that all youth ages 16 to 24 have the nec­es­sary con­nec­tions to school, work and fam­i­ly to have bright futures.

“We are excit­ed to wel­come this new class of tal­ent­ed lead­ers com­mit­ted to cre­at­ing equi­table oppor­tu­ni­ties for all kids and fam­i­lies to suc­ceed and thrive,” says Lisa Hamil­ton, pres­i­dent and CEO of the Casey Foun­da­tion. ​“They are eager to apply the Fellowship’s tools and resources to become even more effec­tive and make a greater difference.”

“Trans­for­ma­tion­al change hap­pens through vision­ary lead­ers who are excep­tion­al at imple­men­ta­tion,” says Leslie Boissiere, vice pres­i­dent for exter­nal affairs at the Foun­da­tion, who over­sees the Fel­low­ship as part of a port­fo­lio of results-based lead­er­ship devel­op­ment ini­tia­tives. ​“Through the Fel­low­ship, Casey builds the capac­i­ty of lead­ers in orga­ni­za­tions across the coun­try to dri­ve equi­table results, and this invest­ment in lead­ers is crit­i­cal­ly impor­tant to achiev­ing equi­table access to oppor­tu­ni­ty for all kids and families.”

Since the Foun­da­tion began the pro­gram in 1993, 140 lead­ers have par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Chil­dren and Fam­i­ly Fel­low­ship. Fel­lows stay con­nect­ed through the Casey Fel­lows Alum­ni Net­work, which is designed to sup­port rela­tion­ships among the Fel­lows and to con­tribute sig­nif­i­cant­ly to sus­tained move­ments to improve out­comes for chil­dren, fam­i­lies and communities.

Alum­ni include Doug Ammar, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the Geor­gia Jus­tice Project; Fred Black­well, CEO of the San Fran­cis­co Foun­da­tion; Ryan Chao, pres­i­dent of the Rails-to-Trails Con­ser­van­cy; Soraya M. Coley, pres­i­dent of Cal Poly Pomona; Glo­ria O’Neill, pres­i­dent and CEO of the Cook Inlet Trib­al Coun­cil; Esther Shin, pres­i­dent of Urban Strate­gies, Inc.; Susan Thomas, pres­i­dent of the Melville Char­i­ta­ble Trust; Tony Thur­mond, super­in­ten­dent of pub­lic instruc­tion for the State of Cal­i­for­nia; and Anne Williams-Isom, deputy may­or for health and human ser­vices for the City of New York.

The first exec­u­tive sem­i­nar for the new class of Fel­lows begins in April.

Mem­bers of the Twelfth Class of Fellows

Malik Ben­jamin
Busi­ness Devel­op­ment Manager
Elevate
Chica­go, Illinois

Puni­ta Dani Thurman
Vice Pres­i­dent, Pro­gram and Strategy
Skill­man Foundation
Detroit, Michigan

Ryan Estes
Chief of Clin­i­cal Innovation
Spe­cial­ized Alter­na­tives for Fam­i­lies and Youth
Wilm­ing­ton, North Carolina

Ange­lo Gonzales
Man­ag­ing Director
New Mex­i­co Pub­lic Edu­ca­tion Department
San­ta Fe, New Mexico

Sha­ron­i­ca Hardin-Bartley
Super­in­ten­dent of Schools
The School Dis­trict of Uni­ver­si­ty City
Uni­ver­si­ty City, Missouri

Jodi Hill-Lil­ly
Deputy Commissioner
Con­necti­cut Depart­ment of Chil­dren and Families
Hart­ford, Connecticut

Andrew John­son
Asso­ciate Direc­tor, Fam­i­ly and Youth Sys­tems Transformation
Cor­po­ra­tion for Sup­port­ive Housing
San Diego, California

Ali Knight
Pres­i­dent and CEO
Fresh Life­lines for Youth
Mil­pi­tas, California

James Liou
Senior Director
Equal Measure
Philadel­phia, Pennsylvania

Kas­si Longoria
Vice President
MAYA Consulting
Austin, Texas

Sha­heer Mustafa
Pres­i­dent and CEO
HopeWell
Ded­ham, Massachusetts

Sarah Neville-Mor­gan
Deputy Super­in­ten­dent of Pub­lic Instruction
Cal­i­for­nia Depart­ment of Education
Sacra­men­to, California

Kim­ber­ly Stubblefield
Assis­tant Deputy Direc­tor, Corrections
Ram­sey County
St. Paul, Minnesota

Sher­man Whites
Direc­tor, Education
Ewing Mar­i­on Kauff­man Foundation
Kansas City, Missouri

Kevin Williams
Pro­ba­tion Manager
Pierce Coun­ty Juve­nile Court
Taco­ma, Washington

Relat­ed Resources

An eval­u­a­tion of the Fel­low­ship found that it helped social-sec­tor exec­u­tives trans­form the way their orga­ni­za­tions worked on behalf of chil­dren in low-income communities.

Three Fel­lows in Min­neso­ta are col­lab­o­rat­ing to strength­en fam­i­ly finan­cial sta­bil­i­ty.

A Fel­low is help­ing Appalachi­an stu­dents suc­ceed by boost­ing kinder­garten readi­ness in rur­al communities.