Meg Dygert is the Senior Policy Associate for Child and Family Well-Being at the American Public Human Services Association (APHSA). In this role, she manages and acts as the liaison for APHSA’s affinity group, the National Association of Public Child Welfare Administrators (NAPCWA). Meg also supports the work of the National Association of State Child Care Administrators (NASCCA) – an APHSA affinity group she has directly supervised for several years.
Meg’s lived experience with New York State’s child welfare system informs every aspect of her professional career. It drives her policy work and her efforts to narrow the door to child welfare by getting every family the support they need to achieve stability, health, and their full human potential. She’s dedicated to prevention and is a subject matter expert in the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA), as well as in leveraging federal funding streams to expand state-led prevention programs.
Working directly with affinity groups to expand APHSA’s child welfare/prevention portfolio, Meg develops and advocates for pragmatic policy, regulatory, and administrative solutions for improving child welfare and child care programs – always with the goal of supporting the success of families across the country.
Before joining APHSA, Meg worked for Manatt Health Strategies, specializing in state and federal health legislation, regulation, and sub-regulatory guidance. Prior to that, she worked as a paralegal with a focus on Social Security Law and connecting children and their families to Supplemental Security Income when behavioral and mental health challenges arise. She also interned at the United States Supreme Court for the Clerk of the Court, Scott S. Harris.
Meg holds a B.A. in Communications specializing in Rhetoric and a B.S. in Political Science and Legal Studies from the State University of New York at Brockport. She is currently pursuing a Master in Public Policy.