Ashley van Fleet

Background

About Ashley van Fleet

I am happiest when I am serving the children and families in my community, and I am grateful to get to do that every day in my role with DHHS. I graduated in 2018 from Doane University with a Bachelors of Arts in Psychology and minors in sociology and political science. I had a lot of incredible opportunities to grow and learn at Doane, and from there I began my work with the community. I served with Americorps for one year in a program that promoted educational access in low-income families with first generation college students. I was deeply impacted by many of their stories, several of which included foster care and adoption. I quickly found that I was drawn to working in child welfare. I worked as a foster care specialist for over two years, before expanding my experiences to working with adults who had disabilities and were facing chronic homelessness. I learned a lot in my six months with Heartland Family Services about not only the direct service with clients, but also what the building blocks of successful company culture consist of. From there, I landed at DHHS working as a child and family services specialist with the child abuse adult abuse and neglect hotline in Omaha, NE. I was granted admission to the Master of Science in Criminal Justice program at Boston University MET with a certification in Cybercrime Investigation and Cybersecurity. I chose this program as I have the ultimate goal of assisting in the intervention and prevention of online child exploitation on the clear and dark web.