Route Fifty | Future Nation: AI and Health Mission Delivery

Janée C. Harvey serves as the Division Director of Family Well-Being and Protection for Iowa.

She worked as a social worker in New York, NY, for more fifteen (15) years before transplanting to Des Moines, IA, in 2015 with her wife and two kids. While in NYC, she began her career working with youth in residential care who were homeless and HIV+, eventually becoming the clinical director for a group home for youth in foster care. Seeing the consequences of long-term foster care on the lives of youth, brought her to a leadership role in a foster care prevention program. Under her leadership, the program expanded into multiple locations in central Brooklyn and involved the implementation of an evidence-based abuse prevention program.   She is a graduate of Hunter College with a Master of Social Work (MSW).

As the Division Director for Family Well-Being and Protection for the state of Iowa, her responsibilities include the administration of the state’s child welfare system, child care assistance and licensing, and family strengthening services.  Her team includes statewide coverage of social work case managers, 24/7 abuse intake, child protection workers and adoption specialists.  She is an executive sponsor on the IT development and implementation project, VISION, which will be Iowa’s Comprehensive Child Welfare Information System (CCWIS).

She has worked with runaway and homeless teens, LGBTQ youth, and families, children and youth involved with the child welfare system for over 20 years. Most recently, she served for four (4) years as the Child Welfare and Community Services Bureau Chief for DHS and as the Division Administrator over Adult, Children and Family Services (ACFS) beginning in 2020.   In addition to her professional roles within Child Welfare, she was a foster parent for seven (7) years and is an adoptive parent.