David Berns provides strategic direction to Casey Family Programs’ nine field offices in Arizona, California, Idaho, Texas, and Washington and to its Indian Child Welfare (ICW) office in Denver. The national operating foundation’s mission is to provide and improve—and ultimately to prevent the need for—foster care.
Under Berns’ leadership, Casey’s field office staff work directly with young people from the public child welfare system to settle them in safe and stable families through foster care, kinship care, family reunification, guardianship, and adoption. Also under his leadership, Casey’s ICW office works with American Indian tribes and urban communities to enhance and develop sustainable child welfare programs that are culturally appropriate.
Career highlights
Prior to joining Casey, Berns served as the director of the Arizona Department of Economic Security. He managed a staff of 10,000 employees and a budget of $2.7 billion, leading Arizona’s Welfare Programs, Development Disabilities Services, Employment Services, Child Welfare, Child Support, Aging, and Community Services.
From 1997 to 2003, he was the Director of the El Paso County Department of Human Services in Colorado, where he worked to integrate child welfare and public assistance systems around the common vision of eliminating poverty and family violence. He also established a diversity coalition credited with reducing annual worker turnover from 20 percent to 10 percent.
Berns was the director of two social services agencies in Michigan from 1978 to 1997. During his tenure, the state’s adoptions increased from 950 annually to over 2,000 through a contracting system that created a partnership between public and private systems.
Selected public service and honors
Berns has been a Big Brother since 1972. He serves on the board of directors for the Center for Law and Social Policy.
In 1999, he was named social worker of the year by the Colorado chapter of the National Association of Social Workers. He also received the Award for Excellence in Public Child Welfare Administration from the National Association of Public Child Welfare Administrators.
Berns earned his Master of Arts in Public Administration from Northern Michigan University. He also received a master’s degree in social work and his bachelor’s degree in psychology from Michigan State University.