Gov. Ned Lamont is nominating Christina Ghio to be Connecticut’s Child Advocate.
Ghio has been the acting Child Advocate for a year now. She was appointed to this position after the previous Child Advocate, Sarah Eagan, left the Office of the Child Advocate (OCA) after less than a year on the job, according to a press release from the Office of Governor Lamont. Eagan left to become the Executive Director of the Center for Children’s Advocacy, a non-profit law firm based in Connecticut.
“As an attorney and child welfare law specialist, Christina has dedicated her career to advocating for the legal rights of the youngest residents of our state, promoting their best interests, and advocating for their welfare and safety,” Lamont said in the press release. “I make this appointment at a time when we are all reminded by recent tragedies involving young people in our state of the vital role of this independent office, including its current investigation into the unconscionable circumstances surrounding the untimely death of Jacqueline ‘Mimi’ Torres-Garcia.”
Torres-Garcia was an 11-year-old girl whose body was discovered in New Britain earlier this month. Before Torres-Garcia death, reports say she had been abused and starved. A medical examiner’s report indicates she was killed months before her body was found in January, when her family was living in Farmington.
Her mother, Carla Garcia, and her mother’s boyfriend, Jonatan Nanita, were both charged with murder. Torres-Garcia’s aunt, Jackelyn Garcia, was charged with child cruelty and unlawful restraint.
After her daughter’s death, Carla Garcia allegedly hired an actress to pose as Torres-Garcia for a virtual check-in with the Department of Children and Families (DCF).
“As always, in addition to their own internal reviews, our state agencies are committed to providing information that will assist the child advocate in identifying recommended changes to laws, policies, and practices that will help prevent such tragedies from occurring again,” Lamont said in the press release. “Christina’s years of work at the Office of the Child Advocate, combined with her experience with children’s advocacy and disability rights groups and as a public defender make her extraordinarily qualified to step into this role.”
Ghio was the associate child advocate from 2022 until she became the acting child advocate in 2024.
Since 2001, she has worked for the Child Abuse Project at the Center for Children’s Advocacy, and as an independent attorney, where she represented parents in legal matters related to special education, child abuse and neglect, and mental health.
Ghio also served as the assistant child advocate for the OCA from 2006 to 2010, when she worked on policy advocacy and systemic investigations, according to the press release.
Before that, she worked as a staff attorney for the New Hampshire Public Defender and the Disability Rights Center in New Hampshire.
“I am grateful for the opportunity to serve as the state’s Child Advocate,” Ghio said in the press release. “So many children in Connecticut depend upon state systems to ensure that they are safe, receive an appropriate education, and have access to the mental health care they need. It is the responsibility of the Office of the Child Advocate to shine a light on those systems, to constantly seek to improve them, and to give voice to our most vulnerable children. It is a great privilege to do this work and I am committed to serving the children of the state of Connecticut to the best of my ability.”
Ghio still needs to be confirmed by the General Assembly during its regular session to officially become the Child Advocate. The regular session starts on Feb. 4, 2026.
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