Ashley Barnes-Cocke

About Ashley Barnes-Cocke

I have spent the last 15 years working at the intersection of youth homelessness and other caring systems in Washington State and nationally, with organizations such as the Mockingbird Society, YouthCare, the Minnesota Alliance with Youth, the MA Commission on LGBTQ Youth A Way Home Washington and Point Source Youth. During that time, I have built youth programs from the ground up with and for young people involved with systems, and love the challenge of collaborating with multiple stakeholders to build processes that work – because that is what young people deserve. Most recently, I have been working with incredible local communities to redesign their homelessness response systems with quality By-Name List (BNL) data, prevention, youth expertise, and racial and LGBTQ justice at the center. Not only have I learned alongside those communities what it takes to make transformative change, but have gotten to coach the first two communities in Washington state to show measurable, sustained reductions in youth homelessness.I fundamentally believe that people with lived experience have the best ideas for improving the systems they interact with - when we include youth voices in creating the systems that affect them, not only will they do better, but our policies, programs and systems will be better.I hold a Master of Education in Prevention Science and Practice from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, focusing on Participatory Action Research and the intersections of adolescent trauma and liberatory education praxis. I served as a Rappaport Public Policy Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, working with the City of Boston Continuum of Care on implementation of their Rising to the Challenge plan to end youth homelessness. I live in the Seattle area with my partner and two amazing kiddos, who love baking, camping, being silly and enjoying nature together.

Experience

1. Improvement Advisor

   Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness

   Oct 2025 — Present

   Coach communities across Canada to reduce and end homelessness for all; collaborate to create high leverage collective learning opportunities; support baseline system-building efforts in alignment with Reaching Home; support communities to develop and enhance reduction projects through the Homeless Reduction Innovation Fund; support development of youth functional zero certification process; center indigenous and equitable leadership throughout

Education

• Bellevue College

  Education

  2015 — 2016

• Hamline University

  Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) Magna Cum Laude, Near and Middle Eastern Studies; History

  2008 — 2012

• Harvard Graduate School of Education

  Master of Education - Ed M, Prevention Science and Practice

  2018 — 2019