Anna Koehle, Ed.D.

Dr. Anna Koehle is a senior associate with 20 years of experience working in local, state, and federal child welfare programs and services. Dr. Koehle is a Human Services Board-Certified Practitioner (HS-BCP) and a Certified Clinical Trauma Professional (CCTP). Her evidence-to-practice approach to child welfare technical assistance and innovation has allowed her to contribute to systems improvement across the country. Dr. Koehle has lived experience as a foster and adoptive parent and focuses her work on the needs of Black children and families involved with the child welfare system. Her experience includes federal child welfare technical assistance, state child welfare quality assurance, child welfare contracts and grants administration, and human services nonprofit leadership.

Dr. Koehle supports the interpretation of child welfare data indicators to improve the integration of health and health-related services to address unmet needs for Medicaid beneficiaries. She also contributes to incorporating equity practices into large scale evidence-based clearinghouse for prevention services aimed at keeping children out of foster care and safely in communities.

Prior to joining Abt, Dr. Koehle led federal technical assistance and change management projects auditing child welfare policy with a race equity lens, building youth and resource parent advisory boards, implementing evidence-based parent partner models, and supporting lived experience integration. She facilitated cross-collaborations between child welfare and other child-serving entities (e.g., courts, education, tribes) and co-created a race equity framework to shape the organizational approach to technical assistance. She has amplified the voices of lived experience by executing the National Foster Care Month virtual event, on behalf of the Children’s Bureau, with a focus on lived expertise and through the co-creation of the Voices of Lived Experience Library.

Expertise

• Child welfare programs and services
• Child welfare workforce development
• Lived experience integration
• Race equity strategy implementation

Key Projects

• Integrated Care for Kids (InCK) Model, U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
• Prevention Services Clearinghouse, U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services, Administration for Children and Families

Publications

• Koehle, A. (2023). Preferred Practices to Retain Black Female Caseworkers Employed in Child Welfare (Publication No. 30991194) [Doctoral dissertation, Nova Southeastern University]. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.