Sharon Balmer Cartagena, JD, MSW

Sharon Balmer Cartagena is the directing attorney of the Public Counsel’s Child Youth & Family Advocacy Project. She is a 2006 graduate of Fordham University Graduate School of Social Work and a 2007 graduate of Fordham University School of Law. Growing up in Reading, Pennsylvania, which is infamous for being the poorest city in the United States, Sharon saw up close how income inequality, housing and school segregation, school-based criminalization, and racial disparities in child welfare devastate generations of children, youth, and families. Since graduating, Sharon has worked at the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles, the Survivor Justice Center, and Public Counsel, where she has represented children, youth, and families on a variety of legal issues, including family law, probate guardianships, access to public benefits, education rights, and other legal issues that destabilize families and push them toward the door of child welfare.