Julie Farber has 30 years of experience working at the local and national levels in both government and the nonprofit sector, successfully designing and implementing major systemic change and transformation to improve outcomes for children and families.  She is skilled at planning and executing large-scale, innovative initiatives with multiple stakeholders in high-pressure environments.  Julie is known for strength in solving complex problems and moving initiatives forward amid obstacles.

 Julie has deep experience and expertise in government and nonprofit child and family/human services operations, strategic planning, innovation and transformation, policy and program development, program evaluation, leadership and human capital, and policy advocacy.  Her experience includes overseeing and transforming the NYC foster care system; driving program operations, strategic planning and advocacy at both direct service and advocacy nonprofit organizations; and providing assessments, consultation and technical assistance to improve public systems.

Current examples of Julie’s consulting work include:

• Providing strategic and subject matter consultation and project management support for public child welfare systems to expand prevention services and improve services and outcomes for children and families in the foster care system.
• Providing consultation in the context of child welfare class action litigation.
• Supporting the design and implementation of a philanthropy-funded $30 million multi-jurisdiction prevention and family support initiative that is testing an alternative to the traditional child protection system.

Julie led the New York City foster care system from 2015-2022, overseeing 26 nonprofit agencies with $500 million in annual contracts and managing a $25 million annual budget and 400 staff directly as Deputy Commissioner for the NYC Administration for Children’s Services (ACS).    Key accomplishments under Julie’s leadership include:

• Implemented a Foster Care Strategic Blueprint that produced measurable outcomes for children and families including:
  • Reduced numbers of children in foster care 
  • Reduced length of stay in foster care 
  • Increased proportion of children placed with kin 
  • Increased foster home recruitment
  • Reduced numbers of children in congregate care

• Cultivated and raised tens of millions of dollars from local and national foundations that launched multiple system transformation initiatives

• Successfully advocated for government funding to scale all philanthropic-funded pilot initiatives 

• Launched two major initiatives to improve race equity outcomes, drastically increasing kinship care and implementing a new model engaging parent peer advocates (lived experts) to help parents of children in foster care on the path to reunification.   

• Designed and issued foster care RFP ($500 million in annual contracts)to transform the foster care system including:
  • An entirely new workforce of parent advocates with lived experience to help every parent of a child in foster care on the path to reunification and improve race equity outcomes.
  • New payment approach to address perverse incentives driven by federal funding structures, and new provider performance/accountability approach that prioritized the best performers. 
  • Increased resources to support family reunification, adoption, kinship guardianship, kinship placement, foster home recruitment and congregate placement reduction.  
  • New requirements for providers pertaining to authentic youth and parent engagement, race equity strategies and services for LGBTQ youth.  
  • Increased therapeutic services and evidence-based models for children/families with complex needs.
  • Expanded education and employment services for children and youth.

Julie has held senior leadership positions at large, multi-site direct service nonprofits providing a range of services for children, youth, adults and families.  At these organizations, she supported teams managing direct service programs serving thousands of clients; raised significant public and private funding and drove new program development; and developed and implemented strategic plans, human capital strategies and data-driven quality improvement strategies.