About Ashley

Ashley (they/them) has spent the last decade working at the intersection of youth homelessness and other caring systems in Washington State and nationally, with organizations such as the Mockingbird Society, YouthCare, the Minnesota Alliance with Youth, the MA Commission on LGBTQ Youth and A Way Home Washington. During that time, they have built youth programs from the ground up with and for young people involved with systems, and love the challenge of collaborating with multiple stakeholders to build processes that work – because that is what young people deserve. 

Most recently, Ashley has been working with incredible communities and young people across the country to implement direct cash transfers programs, putting power and resources directly in young people’s hands. In Washington, they worked with communities across the state to redesign their homelessness response systems with quality by-name list data, prevention, youth expertise, and racial and LGBTQ justice at the center. Not only have they learned alongside those communities what it takes to make transformative change, but have gotten to coach the first two communities in Washington state to show measurable, sustained reductions in youth homelessness.

People with lived experience have the best ideas for improving  the systems they interact with-when we include youth voices in creating the systems that affect them, not only will they do better, but our policies, programs and systems will be better. Ashley is an expert in supporting young people’s brilliance to shine in program design, system change, and research and evaluation.

Ashley holds a Master of Education in Prevention Science and Practice from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, focusing on Participatory Action Research and the intersections of adolescent trauma and liberatory education praxis. They served as a Rappaport Public Policy Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, working with the City of Boston Continuum of Care on implementation of their Rising to the Challenge plan to end youth homelessness. Ashley lives in the Seattle area with their partner and two amazing kiddos, who love baking, camping, being silly and enjoying nature together.

Major Accomplishments

  • Coached 8 communities nationwide to implement direct cash transfer programs for youth

    Supported young people with lived experience to advocate successfully for multiple county and state level, including the creation of the WA Office of Homeless Youth and ending youth incarceration for status offenses.

    Coached the first two communities in Washington - Spokane and Walla Walla - to a measurable reduction in youth and young adult homelessness; Walla Walla is now on track to reach functional zero

    Developed, iterated, and expanded the Washington State Anchor Community Initiative from four counties to ten, continually achieving results

    Co-Led the King County 100 Day Challenge in 2017 with a rad youth expert, housing 330 young people in 100 days

  • Collaboratively built a justice-driven measurement framework for functional zero for youth and young adults

    Led the development of brand-new coaching tools focused on eliminating racism, transphobia and homophobia from homelessness systems

    Supported youth workers across systems to build capacity to support LGBTQ young people through the OutSpoken Speakers Bureau and the Massachusetts Commission on LGBTQ Youth

    Design my trainings reflecting intentionally on the anti-racist and LGBTQ justice oriented beliefs need to shift and which behaviors need to shift in this particular step in participant’s journey to do right by all young people

    Exceptional track record of building strong, effective, highly diverse teams that are mostly made up of people with lived expertise

  • Led the design and initial launch of the National Learning Collaborative on Youth Homelessness Prevention

    Designed and stood up two highly effective, justice-oriented prevention and diversion housing programs, which have become national models

    Built a King County-wide youth worker training program called the Youth Worker Institute, serving stakeholders across sectors

    Provided recommendations on ending student homelessness to the Boston Department of Neighborhood Development and Boston Public Schools during my Rappaport Fellowship with the Harvard Kennedy School of Government

    Advised the Minnesota Department of Education on education and afterschool policy alongside young people

  • Supported young people to pass several pieces of state legislation and county-level youth homelessness and foster care policy while at the Mockingbird Society and the Minnesota Alliance with Youth

    Strive to involve young people with lived experience meaningfully in every major project or program they develop

    Trained at Harvard University with one of the premier Youth Participatory Action Researchers in the country

    Designed and tested a youth fellowship model for integrating youth voice into organizational decision making, which has since been iterated and scaled

    Created a robust set of coaching strategies, tools and resources for coaching communities to involve people with lived expertise in systems change

    Engaged local youth experts in every aspect of a major study on Direct Cash Transfers as Prevention across 8 communities nationwide

“Ashley is one of the only people I’ve met who truly believes that we can end youth homelessness. They walk their talk and truly believe in young people. I’ve never trusted someone more to lead us in this work.”

— Isaac Sanders, Co-Conspirator, PhD Candidate and Consultant

Partners and Co-Conspirators