Lauren Higbee, Deputy Advocate

Lauren joined OCYFA in June 2023 after working as the Deputy Licensing Director at the Cannabis Control Board to stand up Vermont’s adult-use market. Prior to that role, Lauren worked within the Residential Licensing and Special Investigations (RLSI) Unit at the Department for Children and Families’ (DCF) Family Services Division (FSD). Her team licensed Residential Treatment Programs (RTP or congregate care facilities), Child Placing Agencies (CPA or private adoption and foster care agencies) and Commissioner-Designated Shelters (CDS or homeless shelters for youth). Lauren is a former Director of Youth Development at Youth Services in Brattleboro, VT, where she oversaw two youth shelters, and homeless case management services for unhoused youth. She has additional experience reunifying children and families, finalizing adoptions, creating foster care crisis programs, managing ongoing family cases, and working juvenile delinquency petitions in the Philadelphia and Chicago child welfare systems. 

Lauren graduated from the University of Illinois at Chicago with her Master of Social Work (MSW) and Syracuse University for her B.A. in African American Studies, Anthropology, and Political Science. Lauren grew up all around Vermont. She currently lives in Addison County with the best two humans on the planet. You can find her cooking new foods on her soapstone countertops or out in the woods looking for rocks or birds. She has an ACEs score of 9 (hence the rocks and birds).
 

Matthew Bernstein, Advocate

Matthew Bernstein is the first Child, Youth, and Family Advocate for the State of Vermont. He was nominated to the position by Gov. Phil Scott in 2023 and confirmed by the Vermont Senate for a four-year term. Matthew and his family returned to Vermont in 2019 after 15 years in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he was Senior Staff Attorney at Pegasus Legal Services for Children. In this capacity, he represented children in abuse/neglect and special education cases and engaged in a wide range of policy related to children, youth, and families. Matthew graduated with honors from the University of New Mexico School of Law in 2014 and is a former Bergstrom Fellow and Child Welfare Law Specialist as Certified by the National Association of Counsel for Children. He also holds a master’s degree in United States history. Prior to attending law school, Matthew taught English, history, and economics at Amy Biehl High School in downtown Albuquerque. He is a former professor at Vermont Law School and Staff Attorney at Vermont Legal Aid.