Gov. Minner creates Foster Care Task Force, requires recommendations for improvements in 120 days
Dover – Governor Ruth Ann Minner signed Executive Order No. 6 today, establishing the Governor’s Foster Care Task Force to provide recommendations in 120 days to the governor on reforms that can be made in the recruitment and retention of foster families and the involvement of blood relatives in foster care for Delaware children.
Governor Minner said, “Yesterday, I introduced health insurance legislation that will affect hundreds of thousands of Delawareans. Today I am starting a process that may affect only a few hundred – but they are some of the most vulnerable citizens of our state, and I want to be sure they are protected. I am proud to name Sylvia Dorsey as chair of this Task Force. Sylvia is a real foster care expert who has had the hands-on experience of being a foster mother for nine foster children over the course of eight years. This task force is on a fast track and will report to me by June. Foster care is an issue that cries out for attention and cannot be delayed.”
The Governor’s Foster Care Task Force will focus on three issues:
1. How Delaware can recruit more foster families in an effort to reduce overcrowding when one child must be placed in foster care;
2. Ways to retain the good, caring foster families that we have today;
3. Does Delaware have the resources to create “kinship care,” where blood relatives who are caring for their relatives’ children would receive the same financial subsidies as foster parents?
Sylvia Dorsey, 42, works for the Salvation Army Adult Rehabilitation Center (ARC) and resides in Wilmington with her husband, John and her two children, Christina, 18, and Benjamin, 13. "I am honored that Governor Minner has put her trust in me,” Dorsey said today. “Having taken several children into my home, I understand many of the problems that afflict foster parents, and I look forward to helping to try to solve those problems. The Governor has given us a very tough deadline, because she wants to get to work on this issue, so we will start meeting very soon to give the Governor our best recommendations on how to make life better for our foster kids."
“Sylvia’s story is a touching one,” Governor Minner added. “She became a foster parent completely by accident, when she was picking up one of her children from cheerleading practice and found a 14-year-old girl crying because she was afraid to return to an allegedly abusive home. Sylvia took all the right steps and notified the authorities, and in an act of incredible kindness, took this teenage girl into her home that very night. I wish that we had more people with Sylvia Dorsey’s dedication to kids who need help, and I am pleased that she has agreed to chair this task force.”
The Task Force will consist of eight members. They are:
· Hope Green of Wilmington, a foster parent;
· Cathryn Hamill, the co-founder of Grassroots Citizens for Children, a local non-profit;
· Al Snyder, Children and Families First;
· The Chair of the Child Protection Accountability Commission;
· One representative of the Delaware House of Representatives;
· One representative of the Delaware State Senate;
· Cari DeSantis, Secretary of Services for Children, Youth and their Families;
· A representative of the Governor’s office.
“Foster care is a significant piece of the child protection system,” Secretary DeSantis said. “We need to support our foster parents, find the answers to what they need to care for foster children, and determine how we can encourage community members to step forward and take on the challenging but rewarding job of reaching out to a foster care child.”
