Hannah Matthews

Deputy Executive Director for Policy

Hannah Matthews is deputy executive director for policy. In this role, she provides leadership, strategic guidance, and support for the organization’s policy and advocacy agenda. She is an expert on federal and state child care and early education policies and cross-sector policies that affect young children, including children of immigrants. Previously, Ms. Matthews was CLASP’s director of child care and early education. In that role, she advocated for public policies that advanced healthy child development, parent wellbeing, and family economic stability. She was also a leader on improving access to quality child care and early education for children of immigrants and children of color. Ms. Matthews is a nationally recognized expert on the federal Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG) and worked with advocates and policymakers nationally and in states to improve child care subsidy policies for low-income children and families. Her work helped to inform the 2014 reauthorization of CCDBG, its implementation in the states, and to secure the largest federal funding increase in CCDBG’s history in 2018. Ms. Matthews also held policy analyst and senior policy analyst roles at CLASP and served as a senior advisor on child care policy in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in 2015. Prior to joining CLASP, she worked in research assistant positions at the National Assembly of Health and Human Service Organizations, the Levitan Center for Social Policy Studies, and Voices for America’s Children. She also worked at Human Rights Watch. Ms. Matthews earned a bachelor’s degree from The George Washington University, and a master’s degree in public policy from Johns Hopkins University.