A practical framework for how a child protection system should respond when safety is at risk, built as a menu of solutions to guide action, not a statement of challenges. Join our mailing list to be one of the first to read the framework.
At least 1 in 7 children experience abuse or neglect each year
3+ million children are investigated each year
U.S. hotlines receive 4.4 million reports of child abuse and neglect each year
The Center for Safe and Stable Futures exists to bring clarity, accountability, and outcomes into child welfare policy.
This is a system with extraordinary authority—removing children, intervening in families, making life-altering decisions.
And yet, it often operates without the level of transparency or performance clarity the public expects elsewhere in government.
We are here to change that.
Public systems cannot replace the relational strength of families and communities. The role of government is to protect children when necessary and to empower the people and institutions closest to families whenever possible, creating pathways to safety and permanence.
When a child’s safety is at risk an exercise of state power over families is warranted and requires clear decision-making, due process, and accountability for safety, stability, and long term well-being.
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Founder
Aly Rau Brodsky is the Founder of the Center for Safe and Stable Futures and a national leader in public policy, systems reform, and public sector execution. Her work is defined by a rare combination of lived exposure to the problem and authority to change it—spanning frontline service, board leadership, policy design, and executive management of state systems responsible for child protection.
Aly's perspective is shaped by direct proximity to abuse and trauma, alongside years of service to children and families in crisis. She has served as a Court Appointed Special Advocate (CASA), a foster parent, and a medical advocate for survivors of sexual assault. She has also held board roles with child-serving organizations, specializing in prevention and support services for families in crisis, giving her a governance-level view of where systems succeed and where they fail. This multi-layered experience informs a clear and unwavering focus: child safety must be the non-negotiable foundation of any system designed to serve families.
In Louisiana, Aly held executive appointed roles as Assistant Secretary of Family Support, Assistant Secretary of Child Welfare, and Deputy Secretary of the Department of Children and Family Services, where she led large-scale reforms across child protection and public assistance systems. Beyond formal roles, Aly has served as a trusted advisor and strategist to elected officials, agency leaders, and implementation partners—working across states and policy networks to translate reform ideas into operational reality. She is widely recognized for her ability to move beyond theory, aligning policy, people, and systems to deliver measurable outcomes in high-stakes environments.
Aly also serves as Executive Vice President and Chief Strategy Officer at the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity (FREOPP), where she leads national strategy across issues impacting those on the bottom half of the economic ladder.
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Senior Fellow
Les Ford is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Safe and Stable Futures, where she focuses on empowering vulnerable citizens. She focuses her research on the entirety of the safety net: reforming welfare so low-income Americans can build flourishing lives; transforming U.S. health care to be free-market based and consumer-oriented; ensuring individuals with disabilities are empowered; and strengthening child welfare so every child is safe.
Before joining CSSF, Les was Special Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy the White House’s Domestic Policy Council (DPC) from 2018-2020, where she worked to fulfill the President’s objective to empower all Americans by implementing the President's Executive Order, “Reducing Poverty in America by Promoting Opportunity and Economic Mobility.” Les also led the White House initiative to draft the President’s Executive Order, “Strengthening the Child Welfare System for America’s Children.” Before that, Les served as a legislative advisor to Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) on health care, welfare reform, education, labor, religious freedom, and child welfare policy.
Les Ford is the President of Ford Policy Solutions. Les is also a member of the Virginia Board of Social Services and a Senior Fellow at the Alliance for Opportunity.
Les, her husband, and their four children live in Alexandria, Virginia.
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Senior Fellow
Tiffany Perrin joined FREOPP as a Senior Fellow in February 2026, bringing a demonstrated commitment to improving the lives of vulnerable children and families. Tiffany also serves as Director of Care at Stand Together Foundation.
During her tenure with Stand Together, Tiffany developed and directed the Child and Family Wellbeing Strategy, grounded in the empowerment paradigm to advance a both/and vision for child welfare in which children are protected and families are supported. She is currently focused on developing Stand Together Foundation’s investment strategy for promoting a culture of health in which individuals and families are empowered to exercise agency over their mental and physical health.
Prior to joining Stand Together, Tiffany served as the Accelerator Chief and ZOMA Fellow for the Tennyson Center for Children in Denver, Colorado. In that role Tiffany provided leadership and expert technical capacity via strategic investment, programming and modeling to support and accelerate the impact of Rewiring, a systems change effort focused on re-balancing public child welfare investment to incentivize and drive prevention rather than intervention and crisis response. The Rewiring effort was conceived of and shaped as part of ZOMA Foundation’s Child Maltreatment Prevention and Care strategy that Tiffany developed and led from 2017 until late 2019. This effort incorporated Tiffany’s unique blend of experience in building high-impact networks of partners with her passion for public financing.
Previously, Tiffany was with the Colorado Health Foundation where she led their statewide Healthy Schools initiative and later was instrumental in shaping the Foundation’s place-based strategy. Tiffany also has extensive experience in federal policy and advocacy from her time spent in Washington, D.C. where she held positions at CLASP, the Pew Charitable Trusts and with a consulting firm, providing support to the Federal Children’s Bureau.
Tiffany’s professional experiences are rooted in and informed by her education—she holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology and an MSW with a focus on policy and evaluation—and lived experience having grown up with domestic violence. Child and family wellbeing is Tiffany’s life’s work and she is grateful for the network of diverse and enduring relationships she has developed over the course of her career. Tiffany lives in Denver, Colorado and has—as anyone who has ever spoken to her knows—a daughter and son. Being a parent brings Tiffany immense joy and an abundance of laughter. It also grounds her in the reality that parenting can be hard and all parents benefit from supportive social networks and strong communities.
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