Carey Oppenheim joined the Nuffield Foundation in May 2019 to lead a The Changing Face of Early Childhood. She is now leading a programme of work on Grown Up? Transitions to Adulthood.

Her career has encompassed research, policy, politics and practice – all with a focus on improving the lives of disadvantaged children. She was the first Chief Executive of the Early Intervention Foundation, a What Works Evidence Centre, now known as Foundations.

Earlier roles include being Co-director of the Institute of Public Policy Research and Special Advisor to the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair MP, in the Number 10 Policy Unit between 2000 and 2005. She led on children and families including: poverty, early years, equalities and welfare to work. Carey has also been a senior lecturer in social policy, acting deputy director at the Child Poverty Action Group, and has taught history and politics at an inner-city London school.

She is a member of the Poverty Strategy Commission, formed to develop a consensus around a strategy for tackling poverty in the UK. She is an Advisory Group member to the Royal Foundation’s Centre for Early Childhood. She is member of the government’s Child Poverty Analytical Expert Reference Group. She has written Parents, Poverty and the State (Policy Press) with Naomi Eisenstadt.