White House Author

Claire Walker began her career by obtaining her PhD at Columbia University. She then spent the next 45 years organizing communities to advocate for urgent reforms to protect children and families in today’s world. She led a neighborhood movement to protect people from needlessly languishing in jail after arrest in Reading, Pennsylvania, created a successful agency to prevent and treat child abuse in Pittsburgh, and for the past decade has brought together all parts of the Pittsburgh community to address the needs of children whose parents are incarcerated. She retired as Executive Director of the Pittsburgh Child Guidance Foundation in December 2012 and continues to champion incarcerated parents’ rights to parent and their children’s rights to be parented through her recent appointment to the Allegheny County Jail Oversight Board and participation in the work of the Children’s Roundtable of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.