Jean Brownell is the Program Manager for the Caregiver Retention, Education, and Support Program (CaRES) at the Alliance.  She leads the team that supports foster, adoptive, and kin caregivers across Washington State.  The CaRES team is dedicated to helping foster parents thrive so they can focus on caring for the children in their homes.

Jean cares deeply about the families who are involved with the dependency system.  She began her career recruiting, training, licensing and supporting caregivers for a private agency and continued on to other work in child welfare, including as a supervisor, a manager, an analyst, and as a strategic consultant focused on system reform nationally. She has worked on improving child welfare practices in San Francisco, New York City, Indiana, Michigan, Virginia, Baltimore, DC, Louisiana, and Washington State.  Since 2016, Jean has been the Alliance’s caregiver curriculum developer creating trainings for Washington’s caregivers, including Caregiver Core Training.

Jean graduated with a BA in Comparative Literature from Barnard College and an MSW with a Policy focus from the University of Michigan School of Social Work. She loves reading, writing, sunshine, and espresso.