Elaine Zimmerman

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 child support, child care, refugee resettlement, child welfare, TANF, youth homelessness and runways, family economic stability, early childhood development, as well as innovations, cross-sector work and entrepreneurial practices.

Elaine leads the Whole Family Approach to Jobs Initiative with the New England states. This initiative looks at policy and program improvements to bolster family well-being and economic mobility. It has led to state changes in law, culture, model policy and systems reform.  A growing regional coalition of parents, foundations, executive branch leaders, business and legislators work together as a learning community to effect change. The outcomes include state remedies to the cliff effect, shared work on COVID-19, strategies on the worker shortage and focus on family voice and equal access. Elaine received the HHS Secretary’s Award for Meritorious Service, recognizing exceptional leadership for this work.

Elaine is known 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.

Before her time with ACF, Elaine was Executive Director of the Connecticut Commission on Children. She designed children’s initiatives and crafted model policy for the legislature to improve child outcomes. Her trend analysis, constituent development, and strength in framing issues, assisted in the passage of Connecticut’s School Readiness law, Early Reading Success, 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.

Elaine envisioned a democracy school for families that would substantively teach parents how change occurs for children in the states. Co-designed with parents and government, the Parent Leadership Training Institute is now in many states and cities with outcomes showing that when parents have the tools of leadership and social capital, they become actively engaged to improve child outcomes. Elaine received the Good Housekeeping Award for Women in Government for this work.

Elaine served as Sr. Consultant to the Human Services Committee for the California Legislature before her work in New England. She worked extensively on legislation with attention to family strength and supports. This led to the creation of the first state legislative policy committee on the family, which she also staffed.  California wrote the first state report on the family and family policy out of this committee.

Observing a trend of women becoming poor while their vote was becoming rich, Elaine linked the developing gender gap to the feminization of poverty. She created first a state, and then a national initiative with members of Congress, to encourage women in poverty to vote and voice their economic and family policy interests.   

Ms. Zimmerman is the author of articles on family and work, family poverty, child development, parent leadership, and community building. She is a published poet, essayist, and political analyst. Her undergraduate and master’s degrees are from the University of California, Berkeley in Cultural Anthropology, Comparative Literature, Psychiatric Social Work and Community Mental Health. She is the proud mother of two adults and the grandmother of an active toddler.