Debbie Ausburn

I make my living as a lawyer, but what I do is take care of other people’s children. For more than 40 years, I have been working in youth-serving organizations, starting when I was a preteen helping my parents with their summer camp and church ministries. In the years since, I have served as a juvenile court probation officer/social worker, group home parent, criminal prosecutor, volunteer, Board member, and attorney defending youth-serving organizations. While still single and early in my legal career, I served as a volunteer foster parent for emergency placements. In North Carolina, I worked as a federal prosecutor of child abuse and violent crimes, and I also served as a foster-parent for respite care and long-term placements of abused children and teenagers. I returned home to Georgia, switched to civil law, and married a man with five children, two of them still at home. The lessons my children taught me are the topic of my first book about foster and step parenting. In my legal practice, I defend and advise youth-serving organizations, and those lessons are the topic of my second book about child safety policies.