Ellen Kagen

Ellen Kagen is a Senior Policy Associate of the Georgetown University Center for Child and Human Development.


Ms. Kagen she directs the Georgetown Leadership Program, a national leadership learning and consultation effort for professionals and families in the field of health, education and human services. She also is the editor of their leadership training curriculum which focuses specifically on the leadership role in systems change and transformation. In addition, Ms. Kagen is an accomplished consultant specializing in leadership development for senior executives and leadership teams to improve their effectiveness in accomplishing personal, organization and system goals. As a highly skilled and dynamic facilitator, trainer and consultant, she has over 25 years experience working in the field of children’s services and collaboration at the national, state and local levels utilizing her expertise in leadership development, interagency integration, managing collaborative change processes and strategic community development and planning. At the heart of Ms Kagen’s work is a focus on innovation and creation of breakthrough strategies that sustain the evolution of constructive change. To support individual leaders, Ms. Kagen and her colleagues created an innovative new coaching and consultation model called Transformation Facilitation which strengthens leadership effectiveness in reaching system and organizational goals. In addition, at the national level, she played an instrumental role in the founding of the federal Child and Adolescent Service System Program (CASSP) and the Comprehensive Community Mental Health Services for Children and their Families program and at the state level was recently honored by Gov. Jay Nixon of Missouri for her role in bringing innovation to State Government by utilizing the public health approach to childrens social and emotional well being. In her role as a civic activist Ms. Kagen is the inaugural recipient to of the International BBYO One Voice Award which honors her leadership in enhancing youth engagement and activism in communities around the world. Ms. Kagen holds an MSW in Social Strategy from the University of Maryland and a Certificate in Leadership from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. In 2013, Ms. Kagen received her International Leadership Coaching Certification (ICF). She is a proud Wexner Foundation Leadership Fellow (2005).