Update: Schomburg has been announced as the incoming CEO of the New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, effective May 13.
Aysha Schomburg, one of the first child welfare officials appointed by the Biden administration, appears poised to leave her post as associate commissioner of the U.S. Children’s Bureau.
Schomburg has led the bureau — the division most focused on child welfare funding and policy within the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) at the Department of Health and Human Services — since March of 2021. Before joining the administration she spent four years with New York City’s agency overseeing child welfare and juvenile justice.
Youth Services Insider has not received confirmation from ACF several days after asking about Schomburg’s imminent departure. But her recent missive in a monthly federal publication on child welfare makes it clear.
“The universe set me up to evolve when I accepted this challenge. It swung the door wide open, and I walked through it and stayed for 3 solid years,” Schomburg wrote, in a message entitled Ten Toes Down. “In certain belief systems, three represents understanding, which is attained through knowledge and wisdom. During our time, the Children’s Bureau has advanced in each of these qualities, which has led to unprecedented accomplishments. It has truly been an honor to serve you, and to serve this nation, in this way.”
Her departure will leave the Biden administration without nominated or appointed leaders at two of the three top child welfare positions heading into the homestretch of the president’s pursuit of a second term. January Contreras, who was confirmed by the Senate to lead ACF in April of 2022, left the administration after little more than a year.
The other post — commissioner of the Administration on Children, Youth and Families (ACYF), which is made up of the Children’s Bureau and the Family and Youth Services Bureau — is held by Rebecca Jones Gaston, a former child welfare director in Maryland and Oregon who was confirmed by the Senate in late 2022.
At least for the time being, the plan appears to be for Jones Gaston to lead ACYF without other political appointees. She is now listed as the acting associate commissioner of the Children’s Bureau and the Family and Youth Services Bureau, which was previously lead by Kimberly Waller.