Since his 2001 unanimous confirmation by the U.S. Senate as the Assistant Secretary for Children and Families, Department of Health and Human Services, Dr. Wade F. Horn has provided strategic leadership for the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), overseeing a $47 billion budget and 65 programs that serve vulnerable children, youth and families.

Among Dr. Horn’s achievements in implementing President George W. Bush’s policy initiatives include increasing the effectiveness of Head Start and early childhood education programs, promoting positive youth development and building partnerships with community and faith-based organizations in delivering social services to the poor. He has also advanced the President’s agenda for reauthorizing the bipartisan 1996 welfare reform legislation by incorporating responsible fatherhood and healthy marriage services into the broad array of ACF programs.

Also under his watch, ACF launched a mentoring program for children of incarcerated parents and a public awareness campaign to help rescue and restore victims of human trafficking.

Dr. Horn’s results-oriented leadership as a federal official reflects a life-long commitment to the well-being of children, which he has demonstrated as a husband, father, child psychologist, college professor and public policy expert.

After receiving his Ph.D. in clinical child psychology from Southern Illinois University in 1981, Dr. Horn launched his career as an assistant professor of psychology at Michigan State University, where he also served as associate director of the university’s Psychological Clinic and studied multi-modal treatment approaches for children with attention deficit disorders. Four years later, Dr. Horn moved to Washington, D.C., to be director of outpatient psychological services at Children’s Hospital National Medical Center and associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at George Washington University.

Once in the nation’s capital, Dr. Horn was tapped by President George H. W. Bush in 1989 to serve as the Commissioner for Children, Youth, and Families, a division of ACF. Between the two Bush Administrations (1993-2001), Dr. Horn was president of the National Fatherhood Initiative, where he pursued a creative strategy using public awareness campaigns, research findings and conferences to encourage and support involved, committed and responsible fatherhood. He also was an adjunct professor of public policy at Georgetown University and an affiliate scholar of the Hudson Institute.

In addition to having published numerous articles, essays and books, Dr. Horn has served on national panels, boards and commissions including the National Commission on Children, the National Commission on Childhood Disability and the U.S. Advisory Board on Welfare Indicators.

But among his many accomplishments, Dr. Horn is most proud of his marriage since 1977 to his wife, Claudia, and his two grown daughters, Christen and Caroline.