Howard Bath has had a long career working with children and young people in the child protection, youth justice, and disability service systems. Starting out as a youth worker, he has been a group home house parent, program manager and agency director. He later provided a range of clinical services for adolescents and their families, specializing in problematic aggressive and sexual behaviours. Trained as a clinical psychologist at Australian National University, Howard then completed a PhD in Social Welfare at the University of Washington, Seattle. Howard was the inaugural chair of the Child and Family Welfare Association of Australia, an organisation of child welfare service providers and a founding party of Families Australia.
From 2008 to 2015 Howard was the first Children's Commissioner of Australia's Northern Territory with a mandate to ensure the well-being of vulnerable children, a significant proportion of whom were Aboriginal children living in remote and disadvantaged areas. In 2010, he co-chaired an inquiry which produced a roadmap for transforming child protection services in the Northern Territory. Howard currently provides a range of consultancy and training services across Australia and internationally, focusing on the impacts of severe adversity and trauma and the development of effective support and intervention services.