Rachelle Carnesale has been named as the next director of the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services. Governor-elect Nathan Deal’s transition team put out the word this week.
Carnesale replaces Mark Washington, who left the post in September to become COO of FaithBridge Foster Care, Inc., a non-profit family services agency in Alpharetta.
Carnesale is a lawyer with a background as both a prosecutor in child abuse cases, and an administrator of a child welfare agency. She is currently acting director of the Office of the Child Advocate. As deputy director of the OCA she ran the Child Fatality Investigation Program and developed the Child Abuse Training Academy. She has also been a prosecutor in DeKalb and Cherokee Counties.
As director of DFCS she will be responsible for an array of services, including welfare and employment support, protecting children, foster care and other family programs under the Georgia Department of Human Services.
Carnesale got her undergraduate degree from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her law degree from Emory.