Executive Director
Maureen E. Archibald, MSW, LSW
Ms. Archibald's educational background includes a BSW from Howard University, Washington DC and a MSW from Adelphi University, Garden City, NY. She is also a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. She has worked for over 25 years in the field of child welfare. Her professional career includes working for 3 of the largest foster care and adoption agencies in the city of NY. She has worked extensively in supervising and directing programs for children and families in her various roles and now serves as the Executive Director of Harvest of Hope Family Services Network, Inc.
Ms. Archibald is an active participant with the Child Welfare League of America and has lobbied and advocated with local state leaders, the Congress as well as the Senate, for the passing of legislations to positively impact the lives of children and families. She serves on the planning committee for the National Council for Adoption. Her lifelong commitment is to dedicate her work to finding solutions to the plight of children and families who become a part of the child welfare system; advocating for policies to benefit children in need of out-of-home-placements.
With a universal commitment to improving the lives of children, Ms. Archibald has also served on the board of the Friends of Maxfield Park Children Home, a home for children in Kingston, Jamaica. She is actively involved in mission work to Haiti and is directly responsible for work with orphanages in the Country as well as the development and supportive services to a community school in Carries, a village a little over an hour outside of Port au Prince. She currently serves on the Board of Middlesex County Human Services Advisory Council.
Ms. Archibald shares some of what she finds most rewarding in her work with children and families: families coming forward to provide care for children who are temporarily displaced; parents taking the necessary steps for reunification with their children; foster families who have committed to the temporary care of children, stepping in the gap and becoming 'forever families' for these children when they cannot be reunited with their families of origin; a commitment on the part of families, individuals charged with their care and state officials, to the physical, emotional and educational welfare of children.
Ms. Archibald was selected as one of the 25 Influential Black Women in Business by the Network Journal for 2012. She was the recipient of the Abraham Maslow Award for Excellence in Practice issued by JCCA in 1999. Ms. Archibald has been a member of the First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens in Somerset, NJ for the over six years and serves as a part of the leadership team for the Church's ministry in the community. She is the very proud mother of a son, Jason Clarke, a graduate of Drexel University in Philadelphia, PA.
