Debbie Ausburn, J.D.
Team Leader, YSO Partners
An attorney and former DOJ prosecutor who has spent four decades helping organizations protect the children they serve.
About
Debbie Ausburn has spent forty years as an attorney advising and defending youth-serving organizations, work that includes both civil practice and service as a DOJ prosecutor. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of Georgia School of Law and later served on the governing board of the Georgia Department of Human Resources, giving her a view of child welfare policy from both sides of the table.
That professional experience is only part of the story. Debbie is also a stepparent and former foster parent who has raised children from hard places in her own home. She knows what it takes to build a policy that survives contact with real life, because she has lived it as well as practiced it.
What draws her to this work is simple. Organizations that get child protection right change the trajectory of a child’s life. Debbie co-founded YSO Academy and YSO Partners to help more of them get it right, before something forces the issue.
Areas of Focus
Child Protection Policy Development
Building policies that hold up when a real situation tests them, not just when they’re read from a binder.
Trauma-Informed Organizational Strategy
Helping leadership understand how trauma shows up in staff behavior and child behavior.
Faith Communities
Decades of work with churches, schools, camps, and other faith-based youth programs, and a clear grasp of the pressures those communities face when protecting children has to live alongside the mission.
Early Childhood Education
Advising early childhood programs on licensing, statutes and regulations, voluntary accreditation, and standards of care that keep young children safe day to day.
Camps
Deep experience with licensing issues, statues and regulations, voluntary accreditation, standards of care, and other issues involved in keeping children safe
Books & Publications
Raising Other People’s Children: What Foster Parenting Taught Me About Bringing Together a Blended Family
Debbie wrote this book based on what she learned by trial and error while raising children from hard places. She put the lessons her children taught her in this book for foster, adoptive, and kinship parents and stepparents building a blended family.
Protecting Other People’s Children: 120 Days to a Strong Child Safety Policy
For youth-serving organizations that want a practical, step-by-step blueprint for building a strong child safety policy in 120 days.
Keynotes & Workshops
Debbie is available for keynote presentations and workshops.