Clare Higgins serves as the Executive Director of HopeWorx, where she is deeply committed to advancing the organization’s mission of supporting individuals and families while elevating the voices of people with lived experience.

Clare brings more than 20 years of experience in peer support and over a decade of leadership in human services. Throughout her career, she has led teams, strengthened programs and organizational systems, and developed partnerships that bring families, communities, and service systems together. She is particularly passionate about family engagement, trauma-informed care, peer support, and creating meaningful opportunities for people with lived experience to help shape the systems that serve them.

A longtime advocate for families, Clare has served on county and statewide initiatives focused on family engagement, children’s behavioral health, crisis services, and systems improvement. She also developed Meetings That Matter, a family-centered training that helps families and professionals build stronger partnerships through a trauma-informed, strengths-based approach.

Clare’s perspective is shaped by both her professional experience and her lived experience as a parent of eight children, several of whom have navigated child-serving systems. She believes the strongest work happens when people listen to one another, value diverse perspectives, and ensure that the people most impacted by a system have a meaningful voice in shaping it.

Clare holds bachelor’s degrees in Marketing and Sociology from the University of Notre Dame. Outside of HopeWorx, she enjoys crafting, walking, spending time in nature, and enjoying time with her friends and family.