Sean Hughes has more than two decades of experience working on a broad range of public policy issues with a particular focus on children, youth, and families. As a Congressional staffer, he helped write and pass multiple federal laws, including the Fostering Connections to Success and Increasing Adoptions Act of 2008 (P.L. 110-351) which established the federal extended foster care and subsidized guardianship programs. Following his decade on Capitol Hill, Sean served for several years as Director of Congressional Affairs for the Child Welfare League of America before transitioning to consulting.

Sean possesses significant subject matter expertise in a range of cross-sector child and family policy issues, including child welfare, juvenile justice, workforce, education, housing and homelessness, and social services. At SCP, he primarily works directly with public human services agencies to identify and execute system-level objectives, engage and inform stakeholders, implement state and federal laws and regulations, launch and scale programming, and develop sustainable funding strategies.

Sean maintains a robust network of experts and partners throughout the country through his Congressional service and continued federal policy engagement, client work in several states, and ongoing engagement with national organizations.

Reed Connell began his career working as a counselor to children in foster care, and for over 10 years provided direct service to young people in various settings—foster care, special education, transitional housing, and mental health programs.

He transitioned to policy work while earning a Master of Social Work degree at UC Berkeley. From 2009 to 2013, Reed served as the Executive Director of the Alameda County Foster Youth Alliance, an effective and highly visible local advocacy agency in the Bay Area.

Reed has worked with statewide and national coalitions to design, pass, and implement a range of important children's legislation, and has worked with numerous nonprofit organizations and government agencies on resource, program, and capacity development. Reed’s work at Social Change Partners focuses on developing and implementing advocacy initiatives, nonprofit and coalition capacity building, program design, and strategic planning.

Reed also currently serves as the Director of External Affairs for the California Children’s Trust, a statewide initiative that seeks to improve child well-being through policy and systems reform, and the Executive Director of A Home Within, a nationwide network of therapists who provide pro-bono services to foster youth. 

Richard Knecht has delivered program operations, leadership, strategic planning and training services to public and private healthcare and human service systems for more than 35 years.

Richard’s consultation capacities include assisting organizations to create and implement Strategic Planning processes and Quality Management plans to meaningfully support the monitoring and measurement of team performance, and to communicate those outcomes to others with clarity.  When properly executed, these internal systems allow you to focus your energies and implement lasting change in the pursuit of your “True North.” 

Richard has conducted Accreditation Readiness and site visit preparation in multiple settings.  Your team will often benefit in unpredictable ways from an investment in accreditation, and he can assist your agency to measure its readiness, and complete and maintain successful accreditation.

He can assist non-profit service organizations to identify real world solutions that will support and sustain long-term success, with leadership coaching, revenue expansion, board development or program design and implementation.  Grant writing and fund development are the life blood of your agency.  Richard has managed grant application and fulfillment in both public agency and community-based settings, and can assist you in tapping into and maximizing your financial partnerships.

Richard is the former Chief Operating Officer of a large behavioral health hospital, and the former Sr. Vice President of Program Operations at the River Oak Center for Children. He is the co-editor of California’s unique System of Care Integrated Core Practice Model, and designed the template that now serves as the state’s required Memorandum of Understanding structure under AB 2083. With special awareness of the unique challenges public health and human serving agencies face, Richard brings creative and effective solutions from his 10 years directing Placer County’s highly regarded children’s system and his 16 years in private sector leadership.  He is past President of the Board of Directors at Ifoster.org, the country’s online resource portal for Foster and Kinship care youth and their providers, and presently sits on the Board of Directors at Opeeka, Inc.

Jessica Haspel has worked in a variety of public policy, advocacy, and legal roles focused on children and youth for more than 20 years. After receiving her Juris Doctor degree from Stanford Law School, Jessica provided direct legal representation to children and youth involved in child abuse and neglect proceedings in Cook County, Illinois, for nearly eight years. She also handled appeals and co-founded a nonprofit benefiting children in the Illinois child welfare system. 

In 2013, Jessica transitioned into public policy work in California. She led statewide advocacy and policy projects intersecting the child welfare and health fields for nearly a decade at Children Now, a nonprofit. While at Children Now, Jessica created and directed the Coveredtil26 project, which focused on effectively implementing a provision in the Affordable Care Act that benefits former foster youth; in its first three years, this project led to a fourfold increase in former foster youth enrollment in Medicaid in California. She also led implementation projects focused on the Family Urgent Response System and the Family First Prevention Services Act, among others. Jessica served for several years as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) in Alameda County.

Jessica has extensive experience collaborating and cultivating strong relationships with state and county agencies, youth, providers, and other stakeholders; providing technical assistance; developing tools, guidance, and recommendations; reviewing and analyzing policies, research, and legislation; synthesizing complex information; and writing and editing materials.

Katie Hubner brings over 20 years of experience to SCP working across the public, private and nonprofit sectors. Katie first became involved in child welfare and public agency work when she joined Santa Clara County’s Social Services Agency (SSA) as a Foster America fellow. While at SSA, Katie worked with executive leadership to design, implement, and evaluate multiple cross-system initiatives intended to improve outcomes for children and families involved in the child welfare system, including the county’s Comprehensive Prevention Plan to implement the Family First Prevention Services Program. In her later years at the county, she also led a team of Foster America fellows working across four Bay Area counties on child-welfare focused systems change projects as part of Tipping Point’s Better Futures Initiative

Prior to becoming a fellow, Katie’s work focused on strategy and operations for rapidly growing organizations, including an Africa-based nonprofit providing financing and training to subsistence farmers, multiple Bay Area tech companies, and an academic research organization that used randomized control trials to evaluate the effectiveness of various social welfare programs. She cares deeply about addressing systemic and institutionalized poverty. Katie holds a M.A. in International and Development Economics from the University of San Francisco, and a dual B.A. in History and International Economics from Boston College.

Ashley De Alba has nearly a decade of experience working on complex long and short-term research projects and specializes in project and data management. Ashley worked at the University of California, Davis where she helped implement and manage all aspects of grant-funded research projects focused on the implications of stressful family context, child and parent stress physiology, and predictors of mental health problems during adolescents using brain, behavior, and social contexts. Ashley also worked in non-profits where she managed main research publications and contributed secondary data from California’s public data sources. 

Ashley has both professional and first-hand experiences with child welfare issues, services, policies, research, and data. Additionally, she has been a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) and a youth advocate at the California Department of Social Services. Ashley is passionate about improving child well-being. Ashley holds a B.S. in Human Development and a Minor in Sociology from the University of California, Davis. She graduated with highest honors and was awarded the prestigious Charles E. Hess Community Service Award for her dedication and commitment to serving her community.

Mitch Findley entered the social-services arena at 17 as a founding member of VOICES—the nation’s first youth-led community center for current and former foster youth in Napa, California—and went on to help launch three additional VOICES sites in Santa Rosa, Santa Clara, and Monterey Counties. Over the following two decades he built a consulting portfolio that includes directing the Sonoma County Coalition for Foster Youth and advising organizations such as A Home Within, Foster Youth in Action, California Youth Connection, and the Center for Transformative Healing.

A graduate of Sonoma State University, Mitch has served on the National Foster Care & Alumni Policy Council and has been honored as Napa County’s Youth Leader of the Year and Red Cross Good Samaritan Hero.

Prior to joining Social Change Partners, he spent five years at Tipping Point Community, first as a Senior Planner for the $100 million Chronic Homelessness Initiative in San Francisco and later as Program Officer for youth homelessness. In that role he designed and managed a six-county Community of Practice that engaged more than 30 organizations across the Bay Area. Mitch’s work centers on community and constituent engagement, project management, and program development.