We are excited to welcome Laura Hobbelman to C!A® as our new Director, Human Services — a role that perfectly aligns with her career-long mission: using technology as a force multiplier for those working to protect and support vulnerable families.
Laura brings more than 25 years of experience across the human services landscape, with a particular depth of expertise in child welfare, as well as work in adult protective services (APS), child care, child support, and eligibility systems. Her approach is as strategic as it is grounded—ensuring technology serves the needs of frontline workers and drives sustainable, people-centered outcomes.
Laura’s child welfare leadership spans Child Protective Services, Investigations, Assessments, Prevention, Foster Care, Independent Living, Adoption, and Title IV-E. She has led process redesigns across these program areas, improving compliance, centering families in the work, and equipping agencies with the tools and time they need to make a difference. Her expertise extends beyond policy — to practice, system integration, and cultural change.
Before joining C!A, Laura led child welfare strategy at Binti, where she provided subject matter expertise to state and local agencies and helped align technology solutions with policy and frontline realities. At RedMane Technology, she helped shape integrated CCWIS solutions, guided organizational change management, and led the adoption of family-centered digital tools. Her earlier work with the Virginia Department of Social Services included leading multimillion-dollar tech projects, improving Title IV-E compliance, and overseeing cross-system policy alignment.
She has supported the collaboration of technology initiatives across program areas, including child support, child care, Medicaid, SNAP, TANF, LIHEAP, child welfare, general assistance, and juvenile justice. Laura understands the intense pressure agencies face: growing caseloads, increasingly complex requirements, and the unrelenting demand to do more with less.
Laura has also lived this work. She has fostered more than 25 children, opening her heart and home to children and youth in need of safety, permanency, stability, and advocacy. That experience has profoundly shaped her perspective on what the child welfare system should be — one that is trauma-informed, family-centered, and designed to support both caseworkers and caregivers. Her journey began in the field, supervising foster care and kinship placements, and later developing training programs and accountability tools. That early frontline experience fuels her deep belief that social workers should spend more time with families — not navigating outdated systems.
Known affectionately in her community as “Miss Laura,” she brings warmth, clarity, and a fierce commitment to empowering others. She’s a vocal advocate for amplifying the good being done in human services and inspiring the next generation of leaders.
As she puts it:
“We are empowered, and so we have an obligation to empower the next generation.”
