Adoption, Child Protection, Federal Policy Reform, Foster Care, Frontline Practice, Kinship Care, Permanence, Youth in Transition (Aging Out)
Retired
Now retired, Tracey Feild led Casey’s strategic child welfare consulting efforts, working closely with state, county and city agencies to implement major system reforms that improve outcomes for children. Feild expanded Casey’s partnerships with private agencies and explored new approaches to assessing and tracking the well-being of children in child welfare systems. Working with Casey colleagues, Feild articulated reform agendas for federal and state child welfare finance, policy and standards. Feild’s team of 50 staff members and consultants sought to narrow the use of residential placements, increase placements with relatives, strengthen permanency practice and modernize agencies’ approaches to finance, policy and contracting. Another key goal was decreasing the number of teens who age out of foster care or enter foster care because of parent/child conflicts.
Prior to her work at Casey, Feild was vice president of East Coast operations for the Institute for Human Services Management, where she had lead roles in consulting efforts aimed at reforming child welfare, financing and managed care systems in more than a dozen states and localities. Feild was executive director of the Maryland Department of Human Resources Social Services Administration, deputy director of the Ohio Department of Human Services, and research associate at the Urban Institute. Feild is a former Peace Corps member. She earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in housing and public policy from Michigan State University and has studied public administration at the University of Southern California’s Washington Public Affairs Center.
