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Shannon Christian
Associate Commissioner for the Child Care Bureau
Shannon Christian is the Associate Commissioner for the Child Care Bureau in the Administration for Children and Families at HHS. Ms. Christian was six years part of then-Governor Tommy Thompson's nationally renowned welfare reform team in Wisconsin, serving first as Director of Planning for the Department of Health and Social Services, and then as Senior Policy Advisor to the Secretary of Workforce Development. Ms. Christian had a lead role in developing Work Not Welfare, the nation's first time-limited welfare demonstration, and W-2, a complete replacement for AFDC that required work, while offering generous work supports, such as child care and health care, to all low-income working families.
As a policy and communications consultant for the past two years, Ms. Christian assisted the Hudson Institute in managing the evaluation of Wisconsin's ambitious welfare reform efforts, and advising the state as it entered the post-welfare reform era. In addition, she has consulted on projects to increase father involvement, and on best practices in state child care policy. For a multimedia production company, she participated in the design and development of interactive, multimedia distance learning and training vehicles for clients in social work and workforce development.
From 1988 to 1992, Ms. Christian was a special assistant at the US Department of Labor, serving under Secretaries Ann McLaughlin, Elizabeth Dole and Lynn Martin. During that time she helped develop the Work & Family Clearinghouse for the Women's Bureau, served as legislative officer responsible for Child Care and Parental Leave legislation, and led the analysis for the Task Force on Child Care Liability Insurance.
Ms. Christian holds a Master's Degree in Public Policy from the Kennedy School
at Harvard, where she did her thesis on Child Care for a group advising the State
of Connecticut. Having entered full-day, full-year pre-school just before her
second birthday, and remained in the same high quality program for years, Ms.
Christian welcomes the opportunity to help all children have access to the same
positive early learning experiences she did.