Her Story
About Rebecca
I started my career right out of college with a legal investigation firm in my hometown, doing investigative work on custody cases and insurance fraud. In 2017, a friend who worked for the Department of Child Services told me about investigations there, and I made the switch. I just really fell in love with the work - being able to make an impact with families that really needed it, changing lives, getting kids in safe situations or getting them back home with their families after it's safe. I found the work very rewarding and fascinating, and the community of people I met through child welfare has been amazing - my maid of honor in my wedding was a co-worker. In a field that's hard and traumatic, you get really close to your coworkers. Last year I had my first child, and that changed everything career-wise. My life got flipped upside down in the best way possible. I left my work because I wanted to be able to spend more time with my baby. Then I found this remote position with the Indiana Community Action Poverty Institute as a policy fellow, which I started in October 2025. It allows me to still be passionate about the work because it's all about policy, advocacy, and research for underrepresented families. My focus is on kids and families, so I do a lot of research and advocacy for affordable childcare, paid parental leave, and maternal health - stuff that impacts families, specifically low-income families, single moms, or single parents. Right now I'm doing a long-term research project about utility affordability and how that impacts families, and how utility affordability or inaffordability affects children entering the child welfare system.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Rebecca
01What do you attribute your success to?
I'm successful in this role because I have the foundation in child welfare to be passionate about helping people. That's something that you can't really teach - to be excited and passionate about your work is something that I think grows. I have that foundation from 8 years in child welfare, and now pivoting to policy, it's like, okay, here's all the things that I've experienced or seen over the last 8 years, now I get to learn how to change those things or grow those things. I think really it's that foundation that I've had that makes me the most successful, because I'm already very passionate about it.
02What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I think it's challenging working in policy work - it's kind of like a slow burn. A lot of the major policies that my team's been working on take years, even decades sometimes, to see the end product. So you really have to make the small wins exciting, because every year there's a legislative season, and you may have several bills that you're trying to get passed, and none of them pass, or maybe one of them got heard by someone new or got supported or backed by someone else, and so you make more progress next year. I think the challenges are making the small wins exciting and looking at the long picture. It's a marathon, not a sprint, by any means.
03What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I really value working hard. I like to be able to sit down and work, and at the end of it, know that I just put in a lot of work - the time just flies by because you're like, whoa, I just did a lot of work. I really value the flexibility of my work and being able to support my family and still have a career. That's been a huge thing coming into motherhood - can I have both? And I realized I can. I think the policy work also, networking is very important. In the policy field, and really any field I would say, it's about who you know and who you can connect with, and who you can help grow with, and who can push you and who you can push. I think networking is a really important thing, and something that I feel like I definitely could work more on.
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