The Alliance for Early Success has added Allison Gilbreath to its policy team in the role of Senior Policy Director. Gilbreath is a policy and advocacy leader with more than a decade of experience advancing policies that improve the lives of children and families. Before joining the Alliance for Early Success, she served as Senior Director of Policy and Programs at Voices for Virginia’s Children, where she led the organization’s policy strategy and advocacy efforts, including its work to strengthen Virginia’s early care and education system.
In her work on early childhood policy, Allison has helped advance efforts to increase access to affordable, high-quality early care and education and build greater public investment in Virginia’s child care system.
To that end, she has been an active leader within the Virginia Promise Partnership, a statewide coalition of parents, providers, advocates, and organizers. Her work has included coalition building, legislative strategy, and translating the experiences of families and providers into policy change.
Earlier in her tenure at Voices, Gilbreath led the organization’s child welfare policy work. She created Voices’ foster care policy network, bringing together advocates, service providers, families, and young people to develop a unified policy agenda. She also helped establish the Virginia General Assembly’s first bipartisan foster care caucus and led advocacy that contributed to the creation of Virginia’s kinship financial assistance program.
In 2025, Gilbreath was appointed to Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger’s transition team, serving on the Health and Human Resources Social Services Stability, Safety, and Opportunity Subcommittee. She was also selected as an inaugural member of the Partnership for America’s Children’s Core Collective, a national leadership fellowship designed to strengthen and connect leaders in child advocacy organizations across the country. Gilbreath was named one of Style Weekly’s 40 Under 40 in 2019 and has presented at numerous state and national conferences. In addition to her policy work, Gilbreath is an adjunct professor in the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Social Work, where she teaches graduate-level social work students.
“At the Alliance, policy directors are central in making sure state early childhood policy advocates have the connections and knowledge they need to advance the state policies and investments that support young children and their parents,” says Albert Wat, the Alliance’s Deputy Director for Policy and Impact. “In addition to her policy knowledge, Allison has a deep experience with navigating power dynamics within coalitions and the broader advocacy ecosystem. I’m excited for the support–and inspiration–she’ll provide for state advocates.”