Washington, D.C. — The Center for American Progress announced today that Netsy Firestein will be joining the think tank as a Senior Fellow, working with CAP’s Early Childhood team and Women’s Initiative to advance affordable, accessible child care and preschool, as well as other work-family policies.
“The Center for American Progress is excited to welcome Netsy Firestein to the team. Few people know the intricacies of work-family policies such as child care, pre-K, and paid family leave as well as Netsy does—and her decades of work in the labor and work-family worlds are a testament to her dedication to progressive values and issues,” said Carmel Martin, Executive Vice President for Policy at the Center for American Progress. “CAP is fortunate to have her expertise and counsel.”
Firestein has spent much of her career advancing progressive policies. She founded the California Work & Family Coalition, which helped pass the nation’s first paid family leave law in 2002. A year later, Firestein helped formulate Family Values @ Work, a now 24-state coalition working to pass family work policies at the state level. She was the founder and former executive director of the Labor Project for Working Families, which advocates progressive work-family policies. For the past two years, she has led a network of progressive activists and organizers to advocate for access to high-quality, affordable child care with well-compensated teachers and providers.
In 2011, Firestein received a fellowship from Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University, where she conducted research regarding a nationwide campaign for paid family and medical leave. She was named a Working Family Champion of Change in 2015 by the White House. Firestein has published several articles on labor issues, including “A Guide to Implementing Paid Family Leave: Lessons from California,” among others.
For more information or to schedule an interview with Netsy Firestein, please contact Allison Preiss at [email protected] or 202.478.6331.
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