Rob Woronoff, MS, has worked with and on behalf of LGBTQ
children youth, and families for nearly 30 years. As National
Director of LGBTQ Services with the Child Welfare League of
America (CWLA) in Washington, DC, Rob led national efforts to
strengthen the capacity of America’s child welfare system to deal
equitably and competently with LGBTQ youth and families. Rob was
the Probation Training Program director with the USC School of
Social Work; a program director with Just Detention International;
and director of the Putting Pride into Practice Project, a project designed to improve services for LGBTQ foster youth in several counties throughout California. As director of LGBTQ Services and Peer Programs at The Home for Little Wanderers in Boston, Rob developed several adolescent programs including New England’s first group home for LGBTQ youth. He managed HIV prevention programming for gay men with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health as well as the contracts of programs supported by the Massachusetts Governor’s Commission on LGBTQ Youth. As an independent consultant (Rob Woronoff Consulting), Rob has worked with clients throughout the country including HRC’s All Children All Families project (for which he served as lead trainer and co-manager), the Alaska Department of Human Services, the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services, the Council on Juvenile Correctional Administrators, the Texas Juvenile Justice Department, the Judicial Council of California, the American Bar Association, the Devereux Foundation, the Maryland Department of Children and Families, the Indiana Department of Youth Services, the American Institutes for Research, the National Center for Juvenile Justice Reform, the Utah Pride Center, and many others. Rob was co-chair of the LGBTQ training sub-committee of the Federal Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice, and served on the Administration and Staffing Committee of the California Board of State and Community Corrections, as well as on advisory boards for the HRC Foundation, National CASA, the American Bar Association, the Tides Foundation, and others. Rob was the principal author of Out of the Margins: A Report on Regional Listening Forums Highlighting the Experiences of LGBTQ Youth in Care, served as co-editor of the first LGBTQ special edition of the journal Child Welfare, was a consulting editor on the ACLU’s publication Too High a Price: The Case Against Restricting Gay Parenting, and has authored numerous published articles on supportive care for LGBTQ youth. While with CWLA, Rob convened the first national child welfare conference dedicated exclusively to the needs of LGBTQ youth in care. His work has been featured in Time, The Advocate, CNN, and USA Today (among others). He has appeared as a featured expert addressing adoption by LGBT parents on National Public Radio’s On Point and Talk of the Nation. Rob has delivered presentations and speeches at more than 100 conferences and has provided training to thousands of social workers, foster parents, attorneys, law enforcement and corrections officials, medical and mental health professionals, and other advocates for children and families throughout the country. Rob holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Drama School at Carnegie-Mellon University and a Master of Science degree in Human Services Program Development from the University of Massachusetts. He wrote and produced the documentary short film Tyler/Berdie about a gay foster child and his supportive foster mother, and was a consulting producer on the Emmy-nominated documentary Transformation about transgender youth for MTV. Rob was a licensed foster parent through Child and Family Services Agency in Washington, DC.
