Assistant Director, Children & Families

Summary: This Assistant Director’s primary portfolio will be leading the Government Performance Lab’s (GPL) contributions to the Opportunities for Prevention & Transformation Initiative (OPT-In for Families), in close collaboration with the Children & Families Managing Director. OPT-In for Families, a major initiative in the prevention field led by the Doris Duke Foundation, aims to create and test a meaningful alternative to the child welfare system. As part of this initiative, the GPL is providing intensive technical assistance to four jurisdictions as they design, implement, and test approaches to engage families in voluntary community-based resources and prevent future child welfare involvement. By helping jurisdictions better recognize and respond to families’ early signals of need, participating governments aim to offer support before families reach a point of crisis. This Assistant Director’s responsibilities will include overseeing the GPL’s support to these jurisdictions, including managing a team of ~6 GPL Fellows and Project Leaders (see more in “key responsibilities” on p.2). The GPL’s support is provided in collaboration with peer organizations focused on building a coalition of support, engaging individuals with lived experience, and evaluation.

Required Qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree and a minimum of 5 years of professional experience.
• Experience managing and coaching direct reports.
• Strong demonstrated track record of independently structuring work, managing multiple work streams with a close attention to detail, and driving significant progress toward performance targets.
• Proven ability to navigate complex organizations, develop trust and credibility with senior leaders, and build strong relationships among diverse groups of stakeholders.
• Sound analytical skills, with experience independently analyzing and using both quantitative and qualitative data to generate and communicate insights that drive impact.
• Ability to communicate complex ideas clearly, efficiently, and with humility both verbally and in writing, including through slide decks, meeting facilitation, memos, delivery of trainings, and public speaking.
• Familiarity with state and local government or public policy.

Preferred Qualifications

• Graduate-level training in public policy, business, law, economics, social work, or related fields.
• Direct knowledge of government processes, especially the administration of public sector social services or benefits that support children and families, through previous experience working in or with state or local government, non-profit organizations, or organizations focused on addressing government performance.
• Experience balancing priorities in complex multi-stakeholder projects – including senior executives, frontline staff, funders, peer organizations, clients, community members, and nonprofit organizations.
• Strong track record of managing diverse teams, including successful development of direct reports’ skills.
• Experience leading projects in a learning-oriented, entrepreneurial organization or team; self-motivated approach with a learning mindset and an orientation towards results.

Compensation: This role is funded by a multi-year grant at an annual salary of $115,000 plus benefits. This position is a term appointment ending one year from date of hire, with the strong possibility of renewal. The role will receive a Harvard appointment as a Fellow.

Location: Flexible, Cambridge or Chicago preferred. Requires access to a major U.S. airport for regular travel for convenings and site visits to jurisdictions. Anticipate ~20% travel (average of 1-2 trips per month, each lasting 2-4 days).

Start date: Candidates must be able to start this role no later than February 3, 2025; earlier start date preferred.

To apply: Please submit your application using the GPL Online Application Form. Applications will be considered on a rolling basis. If selected for interviews, candidates may be asked to participate in case interviews and submit examples of previous work product.

• Team members based in the states where Harvard is registered to do business—CA, CT, GA, IL, ME, MD, MA, NH, NJ, NY, RI, VT, VA, and WA—will have their pay and benefits administered through Harvard. Team members residing in other states will have their pay and benefits, including medical insurance, administered through Harvard’s payroll service provider, DZConnex, and will formally be an employee of DZConnex.

Key responsibilities of this role include:

Design and oversee a portfolio of projects that produces meaningful, measurable impacts on outcomes for children and families in close collaboration with governments, funders, and other organizations.

• Co-develop project scopes of work with GPL senior leadership so that individual projects have a high chance of producing desired impact, as well as generating learning that can inform national practice.
• Manage team to execute projects, ensuring they meet key milestones and effectively address challenges.
• Track progress on impact metrics and identify adjustments to activities in real time that advance impact goals.
• Work with government leaders and other collaborators to advance project decisions and resource allocation, build government commitment and ownership, and ensure satisfaction with GPL technical assistance.
• Support relevant funder relationship management (e.g., grant reporting deliverables, briefing funders).

Manage team of ~6 GPL Fellows and Project Leaders to execute high-impact work and develop skills.

• Train and advise team members in core GPL capabilities (analytical thinking, project management, stakeholder management, communications, people management) and policy area knowledge.
• Support skill development of team members in a growth-oriented, experiential learning culture, including through both ongoing coaching and periodic formal performance assessments and discussions.
• Create management relationships in which team members feel supported, included, and valued, including responses to mistakes, risk-taking, and creativity that build psychological safety and enhance learning.

Generate insights about government performance that drive improved outcomes for children and families.

• Produce incisive insights and new solutions, tracking research and learning agendas for portfolio of projects.
• Engage team members in generating / refining insights and applying “cutting edge” knowledge in projects.
• Contribute substantially to compelling external deliverables that support goals to test or scale specific solutions through, for example, publications, webinars, or conference presentations.
• Contribute to GPL strategy by advising GPL senior leadership, sharing insights from projects and team, and periodically leading specific strategic initiatives.

Support core organizational activities and priorities.

• Promote a positive organizational culture demonstrating GPL norms such as humility, persistence, rigorous thinking, orientation towards action, pursuit of learning and growth, and professionalism.
• Advance the GPL’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion by seeking opportunities to learn about DEI and incorporate it into project, management, and organizational approaches.
• Contribute to GPL operations (e.g., hiring, training, development), including periodically leading initiatives to improve organizational effectiveness.

About the Government Performance Lab

The mission of the Harvard Kennedy School Government Performance Lab is to accelerate progress on difficult social problems by improving how state and local governments across the country function. Our team collaborates closely with government innovators in developing and testing ways to create more just and effective service systems in areas including child and family wellbeing, criminal justice, homelessness and housing, and procurement. To date, the GPL has engaged with 100 jurisdictions across 38 states and has conducted more than 278 projects shifting more than $6.2B in

government spending towards results.

The GPL’s Children & Families policy area supports jurisdictions strengthening supports for children and families, shrinking and reducing the harm of punitive government responses such as child protection investigations and removals. We do this by working with agencies such as public health, human or social service, child welfare, and early childhood. For example, our team has supported jurisdictions to support substance-using caregivers, place more children with relatives when they enter out-of-home care, connect families to home visiting services, and invest in culturallyresponsive services to improve outcomes for Black and Native children.

Harvard University is an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, gender identity, sexual orientation, pregnancy and pregnancy-related conditions, or any other characteristic protected by law.