Autism Higher Education Foundation

Board of Directors

Maureen K. Flatley

Strategic Consultant in Child welfare, Special Education and Family support

Ms. Flatley began her career as a partner and principal of John M. Flatley Associates, a consulting firm founded by her father, John Flatley, a retired FBI Agent. Together they provided government relations and strategic services to a diverse client list of major corporations, heads of state, celebrities, elected and appointed officials on a diverse range of issues, from national security to immigration reform.

Since 1994, Ms. Flatley has specialized in the representation of children, families and the programs that serve them. She combines a portfolio of bipartisan political relationships with creative approaches to advocacy to achieve high stakes successes in Congress and elsewhere. Working both sides of the aisle, Ms. Flatley has been the architect of a host of adoption and child welfare bills passed by Congress. Collectively these bills authorized billions of dollars and significant increases in federal spending on a broad array of entitlement programs designed to support child welfare, adoption, health care and educational services. With a particular expertise in government reform and oversight, most recently her advocacy on Capitol Hill resulted in the introduction, passage and implementation of Masha's Law, a bill that created a new civil cause of action for children victimized by child predators on the internet.

Ms. Flatley and her clients have been featured on ABC's Prime Time Live, the Oprah Winfrey Show, MSNBC's Rita Cosby Show, Fox News, CNN, CourtTV and elsewhere. She has also been featured in USA Today, the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, Commonwealth Magazine along with other international, national and local media outlets.

A native of Pittsburgh and a life long resident of Washington, DC, Ms. Flatley now resides in Boston's North Shore. She serves on the board of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the Autoimmune Disease Research Foundation and the Autism Higher Education Foundation. She also serves on the editorial board of Fostering Families Today magazine.