Laura Wagner

• Georgia Department of Early Care & Learning
• Director of Family Support

Laura Wagner serves as Family Support Director for the Childcare and Parent Services (CAPS) program at the Georgia Department of Early Care and Learning (DECAL).  In this role, she is co-leading the effort to integrate more meaningful early childhood and family resources into the work conducted by regionally-based CAPS program staff.  Prior to her current role, Laura served as the Early Education Empowerment Zone (E3Z) Director at DECAL.  As a project lead within Georgia's Early Learning Challenge Grant, Laura assisted local teams with infusing strategic early childhood resources into ongoing, or new, community planning efforts, and also led efforts to drive data-informed community conversations centered on Quality Rated and CAPS in the four E3Zs.  Before joining the DECAL team, Laura worked as the Director of Research for the Georgia Early Education Alliance for Ready Students (GEEARS), where her primary responsibilities centered on the development of a dynamic, web-based data mapping tool for Early Childhood resources.  Laura holds a Master of Education degree from Vanderbilt University.