David Lujan, DCS Director
David Lujan is the Director of the Arizona Department of Child Safety.
David brought over two decades of child welfare advocacy experience to the Department when he assumed the Director position in April 2023.
David is an attorney who earned his Juris Doctor degree from the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. His legal career includes working as an Arizona Assistant Attorney General and as the staff attorney for the Arizona State Senate Judiciary Committee.
He decided to run for elected office in 2004 and served as a state representative from 2004 to 2010 and as a state senator from 2011 to 2013. During this time, David helped launch Defenders of Children, a non-profit organization that provides free legal representation to abused children and adult victims of domestic violence. As staff attorney for the organization, he worked with Arizona’s and Utah’s attorney generals to open the first non-profit in Colorado City to provide legal services to victims of child abuse.
After leaving Defenders of Children, David served as the Chief Administrator for ASU’s Preparatory Academy, and later, as the National Director of Public Policy for Reading Partners, a non-profit organization dedicated to early childhood literacy.
David joined Children’s Action Alliance in 2017 to launch its affiliate, the Arizona Center for Economic Progress, and serve as its first Executive Director. In this role, he worked to advance policies at the State Capitol to improve economic opportunities for all Arizonans.
He became President and CEO of Children’s Action Alliance in November 2020. Under his leadership, the organization achieved a significant number of policy priorities, including increased stipends for kinship foster care providers; expanding access to health coverage for youth transitioning out of foster care; and $800 million in new annual funding for public education.
