FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, February 28, 2008

Lieutenant Governor candidate Matt Denn Thursday issued a plan for improving Delaware’s child protection system that includes intensive involvement with at-risk families, reduced caseloads for child safety workers and recruiting more foster parents.

Joined by experienced child advocates and speaking at A.I. du Pont Hospital for Children, Denn said his plan includes proven methods for protecting children. Denn’s campaign for Lieutenant Governor is focused on issues affecting Delaware’s children.

“Last year, thousands of children in Delaware were either abused, neglected, or sufficiently at risk for one or the other that they had cases opened with the state’s Division of Family Services. These are kids who can’t protect themselves, who are either suffering harm or are at serious risk for harm from their parents or guardians,” Denn said. “We as a state have an absolute moral responsibility to look out for these kids, and we need to do a better job of it.”

Denn, who was the first chairman of the state’s Child Protection Accountability Commission when it was created in 1998, said that although Delaware had made significant strides in protecting children in the last ten years, it is still falling short. He cited studies by the federal government showing that Delaware did not respond quickly enough or carefully enough to allegations of child abuse, and that it did not provide many children in foster care with sufficiently stable or properly monitored foster homes.

Denn’s three-part plan includes:

• Implementation of a visiting nurse program where registered nurses will conduct pre-natal and post-natal visits with first time mothers from at-risk populations. These visiting nurse programs have been successful in reducing child abuse and neglect in 22 other states.

• Reduction in the caseloads being carried by Division of Family Services treatment workers.

• Implementation of the recommendations of the state’s 2001 Foster Care Task Force to recruit and retain high-quality foster parents in Delaware. Denn also said made a personal commitment to recruiting foster families as Lieutenant Governor.

“Our goal should be to do everything we reasonably can to prevent child abuse and neglect, to address it when it happens in a way that ensures the safety of the child victims, and to ensure that those kids who must enter foster care have the best possible care we can provide,” Denn said.

Denn’s proposals were endorsed by Al Snyder, former director of Children and Families First and co-chairman of the Governor’s Infant Mortality Task Force; Janice Mink, a member of the Child Protection Accountability Commission and one of the founders of Grassroots Citizens for Children; and Muriel Gilman, a board member of the Delaware Community Foundation and a member of several other organizations dedicated to child welfare.

Mink, who worked with Denn in the late 1990s to make needed reforms to the child welfare system, said, “Matt reached out to all the players in the child welfare arena including advocates for ideas on what was working and what changes were needed. I was impressed then as I am now with Matt’s enthusiasm and desire to do right by children.”