Advisory Council
Susan Grundberg has spent more than 30 years in child welfare and human services and has successfully conceived of and implemented system and organizational reforms. During nine years with NYC’s Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), Susan was focused permanency and she co-chaired early ACS efforts to reduce reliance on residential care. She also spent four years as the CEO of You Gotta Believe—one of the few agencies in the country focused solely on connecting teens and young adults to permanent families before they age out of foster care. In addition to the AFFCNY advisory committee, she serves on the boards of Family Builders Network and Voice for Adoption—two national advocacy networks focused on kinship, family support, permanency, and well-being.
Susan is now an independent consultant with special expertise in all aspects of permanency, creating a kin-first culture, family support, youth/family engagement, and disruptive mental health interventions. She is working with several programs to replicate and scale up promising interventions and believes that real transformation cannot be achieved working around the edges. Her life was transformed beyond measure when she became a foster/adoptive mom to two 18-year-old sons. Experiencing the system through their eyes has added a new lens and many levels of complexity, urgency, and passion to her commitment to systemic change.