Deborah Harburger, MSW
Director of Policy and Financing and Assistant Extension Professor
Innovations Institute
Deborah Harburger, MSW, is Director of Policy and Financing at Innovations Institute and Assistant Extension Professor at the UConn School of Social Work. She has more than two decades of experience working in and with public child- and family-serving agencies, including serving as Director of the Ruth Young Center for Maryland. A trained Title IV-E worker, she served as project director and principal investigator on multiple federal- and state-funded contracts and grants and taught Children and Social Services Policy to social work graduate students. Ms. Harburger provides TA to states and communities on children’s behavioral health service array and sustainable financing, including Medicaid and Title IV-E; child welfare systems and services; youth homelessness; strategic planning; and implementation of interagency initiatives. Ms. Harburger has developed Medicaid State Plan Amendments, a Title IV-E Waiver, FFPSA Prevention Plans, strategic plans, fund maps and fiscal analyses, white papers, and other technical documents. A summa cum laude graduate of The Pennsylvania State University Schreyer Honors College with a BA in psychology, Ms. Harburger received her MSW with a concentration in management and community organization and specialization in families and children from the University of Maryland School of Social Work.
Research Interests:
- Child Welfare and Homelessness
- Child Welfare and Behavioral Health Services
- Interagency Structures and Service Array
- Medicaid Financing for Children’s Behavioral Health Services
