Jeff Fleischer, Chief Executive Officer

Rutgers University, M.S.W., B.A.

Licensed Clinical Social Worker, New Jersey

During his 26 year tenure with YAP, Jeff has led the organization and a cadre of talented and skilled advocates and local leaders throughout the country to develop new programs that promote family and community over institutionalization. Under his leadership, YAP now serves over 12,000 families in over 18 states, 25 major US cities and employs 2,600 Staff.

Jeff's career reflects his commitment to advocating for critical changes in the lives of children and families and in human service systems in his home state of New Jersey, around the country, and around the world. His advocacy in New Jersey led to major changes in the New Jersey Child Welfare System, including passage of the "Bring Our Children Home Act" which ended the state's practice of sending youth to out-of-state institutions and encouraged family and community-based care for at-risk youth in their own neighborhoods. He pioneered street work programs in New York and NJ in the 1970's, Directed La Casa De Don Pedro's Youth Programs serving high risk youth and gangs in Newark in the 1980's, and developed effective gang intervention programs for youth involved in the Bloods, Crips and Latin King conflicts in Fort Worth, Texas in the mid 1990's.

Jeff's leadership reaches beyond the United States. He co-founded Youth Advocate Programmes/UK Ltd. and YAP/Ireland to reduce their reliance on institutional care. He forged a relationship with YAP's sister agency, the Street Children's Movement (Movimiento) in Guatemala, where he provided the program with support, advocacy and consultation in Guatemala City and co founded the International Youth Advocacy Federation to support and empower at risk youth programs around the world to protect children and workers.

Jeff currently sits on the Advisory Board of Monmouth University Graduate School of Social Work and is Vice Chair of the National Collaboration for Youth. He is a native of Newark, New Jersey and received both his BA and MSW from Rutgers University where he alleges to have also played collegiate soccer. He can also occasionally be seen sailing his old wooden schooner down the Metedeconk River now and then.