Elaine Zimmerman

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Elaine Zimmerman is the Region I Administrator for the Administration of Children and Families, representing the six states of New England. Her agency oversees work in two generational practice, child support, child care, refugee resettlement, child welfare, TANF, youth homelessness, family economic stability, early childhood development, and innovations. She designed a multi-year initiative with the New England states focused on ‘A Whole Family Approach to Jobs’ to build family economic stability and well-being. For this work, she was honored, in 2019, with Secretary Azar’s Award for Meritorious Service, showing exemplary leadership and performance.

Previous to this position, she served as the Executive Director of the Connecticut Commission on Children where she designed state children’s initiatives and crafted model policy with state leaders to improve child outcomes. She reported to the CT legislature on strategy, policy and budget recommendations. Her expert trend analysis, constituency development, and strength in framing issues, assisted in the passage of Connecticut’s Two Generational Advisory, School Readiness, Early Reading Success, Connecticut’s Blueprint in Reading, the Child Poverty Reduction bill, the State Prevention Council, the Children and Disaster Act, the Safe Learning Act, the Parent Trust Act and An Act Concerning the Mental, Emotional and Behavioral Health of Youths.

Ms. Zimmerman is recognized for her policy acumen and commitment to community capacity. She brings in broad and unexpected stakeholders to child policy discussion and ensures family engagement and broad public access to information. Keenly focused on family civics, model policy and civil rights, she weaves the three together in her leadership role for children.

Ms. Zimmerman envisioned and created the Parent Leadership Training Institute (PLTI) to assure that parents were an active and informed constituency for children. Noting that parents are distanced from policy discourse, she created a democracy school for families that substantively teaches how change occurs for children in the states. For this work, she was given the Good Housekeeping Award for Women in Government.

Ms. Zimmerman is the author of several articles on family and work, child development, parent leadership, and community building. She is a published poet, essayist, and political analyst. Ms. Zimmerman has a B.A. with a dual major in Cultural Anthropology and Comparative Literature from the University of California, Berkeley. She also has a Masters in Community Mental Health from the University of California, Berkeley.

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