New York – The Children’s Aid Society (CAS) is proud to announce that Valerie Russo has been appointed to the new position of Vice President of Strategy and Excellence.

In this role, Russo will lead CAS’s efforts to manage performance against key organizational and programmatic outcomes, advance a culture of continuous quality improvement, and create systems to develop and sustain program excellence and innovation. She will serve on the senior leadership team, and supervise functions related to public grants, quality assurance, and policy. Russo will direct and plan change initiatives within CAS to ensure consistent and effective continuums of care for children, including the re-organization of program divisions and building systems for ongoing strategic planning, performance management, and program evaluation.

“Valerie Russo is recognized as a skilled administrator and strategist,” said Richard R. Buery, Jr., President and CEO of The Children’s Aid Society. “Her expertise in child welfare policy and her proven ability to develop and implement quality control systems will be tremendous assets to our organization.”

Russo comes to CAS after a distinguished tenure at the New York City Administration for Children’s Services (ACS), where most recently she served as the founding Deputy Commissioner of the Division of Quality Assurance. In this role, Russo was charged with improving the systems that evaluate and monitor child welfare service providers. She directed the redesign of Scorecard, ACS’s primary evaluation tool, guided the Satterwhite Training Academy through an expansion of training for child protective workers and redesign of its child protective training curriculum, and oversaw the development of the case summary component of Childstat, ACS’s weekly accountability and learning forum. Prior to becoming Deputy Commissioner, Russo served ACS as a Special Assistant to the Commissioner and Chief of Staff.

Russo has also served as the Director of Planning at The New York Foundling, where she developed the organization’s strategic plan. She was selected as an Annie E. Casey Foundation Children and Family Fellow in 2003.

“As stewards of an enduring mission to improve life outcomes for poor children, it is more important than ever that our work results in significant and sustainable change in the communities we service. Valerie will be working with an exceptional team at The Children’s Aid Society to support our efforts to ensure all of the children who enter our programs will become the educated, healthy, and confident adults that we want them to be,” said Buery.

The Children’s Aid Society is an independent, not-for-profit organization established to serve the children of New York City. Our mission is to help children in poverty to succeed and thrive. We do this by providing comprehensive supports to children and their families in targeted high-needs New York City neighborhoods. Founded in 1853, Children’s Aid is one of the nation’s largest and most innovative non-sectarian agencies, serving New York’s neediest children. Services are provided in community schools, neighborhood centers, health clinics and camps. For additional information, please call 212-949-4938, email ellenl@childrensaidsociety.org, or visit www.childrensaidsociety.org.

###