Mary Cagle works as a consultant for the Youth Law Center’s Quality Parenting Initiative. Her career spanned many years as a prosecutor in Miami-Dade County, CEO of CHARLEE, a foster care agency, the Director of Children’s Legal Services for the State of Florida, and Inspector General for Miami-Dade County. During her years leading Florida’s lawyers in the dependency system, she worked closely with YLC, advocating for trauma-informed transitions when children are moved from one placement to another and ensuring that foster parents and birth parents were empowered to build relationships to reduce the child’s trauma after removal, while in care and during the reunification process.
Brandy Hudson works as a consultant for the Youth Law Center’s Quality Parenting Initiative, Birth and Foster Parent Partnership, and the CHAMPS Campaign to transform foster care systems across the nation so every child and youth can thrive. Brandy previously worked as a technical assistance project manager for Casey Family Programs and spent five years at the District of Columbia Child and Family Services Agency serving in various roles, including program supervisor and special assistant. Brandy draws on her own experience as a former foster and probation youth, child welfare involved parent and licensed kinship provider, working to elevate and center the voice and expertise of those most impacted by child welfare and juvenile justice systems as leaders and designers of system transformation.
