A year into his second term, President Donald Trump has appointed an experienced adoption advocate to lead the federal Children’s Bureau, Youth Services Insider has learned.
Ryan Hanlon, the former president and CEO of the Virginia-based National Council for Adoption, is expected to be announced next week, according to a federal official reached late Friday.
Hanlon has been in the field for roughly two decades, primarily outside government. He served as the president and chief executive officer of the National Council for Adoption for three years before departing in December. He had worked with the organization since 2017. Prior to that, Hanlon served as executive director of America World Adoption, an agency that provides domestic and international adoption services.
The incoming Children’s Bureau leader earned a doctorate in social work from the Catholic University of America in 2018, according to his LinkedIn page, and has worked as a field instructor and adjunct professor there since 2015. He has also published several pieces of research, including a study on the impact of COVID‐19 on foster parents and the experiences of adult adoptees.
The Children’s Bureau oversees billions of dollars in spending, guides policy and regulates the child welfare system. It is led by an associate commissioner appointed by the president who does not require Senate confirmation.
During Trump’s first term, the office was led by Jerry Milner. Former President Biden appointed Aysha Schomburg. Currently the Administration for Children and Families’ website lists Jennifer Miller Haight, a former researcher at Chicago’s Chapin Hall, as the acting associate commissioner of its Children’s Bureau.
Hanlon lives in Virginia with his wife and their four children, including a son adopted internationally. In a recent podcast interview, he said that adoption deepened his passion for the field; he also called the decline in international adoption, overall, a “tragedy.” In 2022, he wrote an op-ed for The Imprint urging Congress to extend more support to lower-income adoptive families, citing his own family’s experience.
“Like many other adoptive families, we had a lot of expenses during our adoption process: adoption agency fees, completing a home study, obtaining certified documentation, travel expenses and more,” Hanlon wrote. “We should be sending a message to all potential parents that they will be supported after they complete an adoption.”
Alex Adams, assistant secretary of the Administration for Children and Families, is the Trump appointee who will oversee Hanlon’s work. Since his October Senate confirmation, Adams has made headlines, announcing an initiative to boost the nation’s foster home capacity and joining the president and first lady for the signing of an executive order on child welfare system data and technology and support for older foster youth.
Earlier this week, Adams alerted governors in five Democrat-controlled states that his agency will freeze $10 billion in federal funding for child care, cash assistance programs and child welfare services, moves the states have already challenged in court.
In 2022, Hanlon received the Angel in Adoption award from the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute.
“With nearly two decades of dedicated service to the adoption community, Hanlon has impacted thousands of families and children through his work as a foster care caseworker, child protection services, executive director of a private agency overseeing domestic and international adoptions, and leadership roles,” a press release said.
Since June 2025, he has served as co-chair of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Working Group on the Appropriate Use and Timing of Termination of Parental Rights, which is developing a series of recommendations to improve outcomes for foster children and families and strengthen permanency planning efforts.
In a November podcast interview, he shared some of his views on debates involving adoption and child welfare.
“There’s a loud but small group that are anti-adoption, and in some ways bully people that have more nuanced views,” he said on the Thriving Adoptees podcast hosted by Simon Benn. “We’ve got millions of different experiences and millions of different stories. And, there isn’t a single experience of being adopted, or being an adoptive parent or being a birth parent. When we pretend that, we do a disservice.”
He made a similar point on the child welfare system: “There was this whole group that wanted to abolish child welfare,” he said. “I’m not sure that’s going to be a lasting movement, but I think they’ve done a lot of damage, even around messaging around adoption, and what outcomes look like.”
Hanlon said he hopes “the pendulum swings back and we have a conversation that is steeped in the social science research, and proven therapies like post-adoption supports.” He added that states and the federal government should also do more to “focus on birth parents,” who he said have been overlooked in favor of adoptive parents and adoptees.
