Deborah Harburger, MSW

Director of Policy and Financing and Assistant Extension Professor

Innovations Institute

Deborah Harburger is an assistant extension professor and director of policy and financing at the Innovations Institute, University of Connecticut School of Social Work. Her research interests focus on child welfare and homelessness, child welfare and behavioral health services, interagency structures and service arrays, and Medicaid financing for children’s behavioral health services. She’s particularly interested in supporting states, organizations, and providers in designing, implementing, and sustaining effective systems of care for children, youth, and families.

Ms. Harburger has more than two decades of experience working in and alongside public child- and family-serving agencies, including serving as director of the Ruth Young Center for Maryland. A trained Title IV-E social worker, she has served Principal Investigator and project director on multiple federal- and state-funded contracts and grants and has taught Children and Social Services Policy to graduate-level social work students.

At the Innovations Institute, Ms. Harburger provides technical assistance to states and communities on children’s behavioral health service arrays and sustainable financing strategies, including Medicaid and Title IV-E financing, child welfare systems and services, youth homelessness, strategic planning, and implementation of interagency initiatives.

Her work has included developing Medicaid State Plan Amendments, a Title IV-E Waiver, Family First Prevention Services Act Prevention Plans, strategic plans, fund maps, fiscal analyses, white papers, and other technical documents that support systems reform and implementation efforts.

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.