Matthew Claps
Matthew Claps is a principal TA consultant in the Human Services division’s Youth, Family and Community Development program. He has more than twenty-five years’ experience working in different human services settings, including child welfare, behavioral health, developmental disabilities, and juvenile justice systems, where he has been a practitioner, consultant, manager, and senior leader. He is known nationally for his expertise in child welfare programs and practices, particularly in practice model development and the related program infrastructure needed to effectively support their implementation.
Mr. Claps provides leadership, technical assistance, and consultation to child welfare and behavioral health systems. He has a proven track record of helping improve youth and family outcomes and his work is guided by a core belief that, “…good practice leads to good outcomes and both require good organization support.” He is a skilled facilitator and consensus builder who is adept at driving collaborative program design and scalable implementation. He has vast content knowledge related to child welfare practices and policies with expertise in organizational development, implementation science, staff development, and continuous quality improvement processes, including program evaluation, using a mix of quantitative and qualitative methodologies.
Mr. Claps has held senior leadership roles in not-for-profit, philanthropic, and state government settings. Previously, Mr. Claps was the senior director of practice for Child and Family Services at Casey Family Programs where he was responsible for all direct services program infrastructure for ten services sites across five states. He has also been the chief of policy and state training lead for the Florida Department of Children and Families. He also served as a senior management team member and lead for all children’s services interagency collaboration efforts for the Florida Agency for Persons with Disabilities. He has worked as a management consultant with more than twenty states different human services agencies in support of their respective missions.
