Rebecca Jones Gaston — a former social worker and state and federal child welfare official with decades of experience — has worked to improve legal representation for kids and parents, barred out-of-state placements and supported LGBTQ+ foster youth.
After months of deliberation and a contentious search process, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has chosen a new child welfare commissioner, The Imprint has learned. The mayor who has championed an affordability agenda and free child care has selected Rebecca Jones Gaston, a top child welfare appointee during the previous Biden administration.
Mamdani’s office did not confirm or deny who had been selected as the new head of the Administration for Children’s Services. But four leaders inside city government and local child welfare circles said Jones Gaston is expected to be publicly named commissioner Tuesday.
Jones Gaston has run two state child welfare systems, and served as commissioner of the U.S. Administration on Children, Youth, and Families from 2022 to 2025. In that capacity, she supported significant reforms — reducing barriers for kinship caregivers to become licensed foster parents; using federal funds to expand legal representation for children and parents in child welfare cases, and ensuring safer, more inclusive foster care placements for LGBTQ+ youth.
She is now the leader of RJG Consulting, which she founded, and recently sat on a prominent Washington, D.C., policy working group examining issues in termination of parental rights cases nationwide. She did not reply to several emails and phone calls regarding the New York City commissioner post.
Jones Gaston will bring personal experience to the position overseeing one of the largest child welfare agencies in the country: She has spoken publicly about being a Black child adopted from foster care, and being raised in a mostly white, Norwegian American farming community in Iowa. New York City’s roughly $3 billion Administration for Children’s Services serves more than 6,000 foster youth and conducts roughly 40,000 child abuse and neglect investigations annually. It also distributes tens of thousands of child care vouchers and runs detention facilities housing hundreds of youth accused of crimes.
According to her testimony during her Senate nomination to federal office, she began her career as a social worker. She later worked with the national philanthropy Casey Family Programs, and as national campaign director for AdoptUsKids, which connects foster children with adoptive families.
“We served under Biden to do great things, so she has that national perspective — not only on the East Coast but on the West Coast — and her experience will be an asset to the city.”
—Aysha Schomburg, former associate commissioner of the U.S. Children’s Bureau
A former senior advisor for New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services who worked with Jones Gaston in the Biden administration couldn’t confirm her former colleague’s appointment, but said she approved of the choice, if confirmed.
“Under the Biden administration, we were focused on equity for all families,” said Aysha Schomburg, former associate commissioner of the federal Children’s Bureau and the leader of the nonprofit Healing New York. “We served under Biden to do great things, so she has that national perspective — not only on the East Coast but on the West Coast — and her experience will be an asset to the city.”
Jones Gaston has run two state child welfare systems, and served as commissioner of the U.S. Administration on Children, Youth, and Families from 2022 to 2025. In that capacity, she supported significant reforms — reducing barriers for kinship caregivers to become licensed foster parents; using federal funds to expand legal representation for children and parents in child welfare cases, and ensuring safer, more inclusive foster care placements for LGBTQ+ youth.
The selection of Jones Gaston marks a significant shift from Mamdani’s two previous finalists for the commissioner post, who were ultimately not named. New York City attorneys Angela Burton and Michelle Burrell have both been outspoken about the overrepresentation of Black and brown families in the child welfare system and the need to expand due process protections for parents facing child abuse and neglect allegations. Burton, a former advisor to the New York State court system, has also called for the child welfare system to be abolished.
The candidates had extensive experience in legal advocacy in the child welfare field, but neither had managed an organization matching the scale of New York City’s Administration for Children’s Services.
Jones Gaston, in contrast, has 25 years experience in local and national roles, and led state child welfare agencies in Oregon and Maryland. She spoke at length with The Imprint Weekly podcast in 2024, shortly before she left the Biden administration.
As the executive director of the Social Services Administration in Maryland, she led efforts to reduce out-of-state foster care placements, which declined nearly 75% in less than four years, according to an Associated Press report. In Oregon, she ended the use of out-of-state residential treatment facilities and launched a new division aimed at recognizing racial disparities and treatment of tribal communities within the state’s child welfare system.
The mayor’s decision about who should lead the city’s Administration for Children’s Services has been closely watched and long awaited by advocates for children and families and local service providers. The city has had a dramatic decades-long decline in its foster care population, and is known for its strong community of advocates supporting low-income families of color, who are disproportionately impacted by CPS investigations and foster care separations. Onlookers have eagerly awaited word on who the democratic socialist mayor would select to lead its child welfare agency.
But unlike previous mayors, four months into his administration, a commissioner has not yet been named. The former commissioner, Jess Dannhauser, resigned from his position in early March. Since then, Melissa Hester, previously deputy commissioner of human resources at the Administration for Children’s Services, has been serving as interim commissioner.
