OCA Quarterly Newsletter

Welcome to the first OCA Quarterly Newsletter. First, I want to take the time to thank you all for your service and commitment to representing children experiencing foster care. As of this month Delaware has 665 children in DSCYF custody and our volunteer attorneys represent 276 of those children. Additionally, Child Attorney volunteers represent 27 youth who are now adults and chose for Family Court to extend jurisdiction over them. In FY 2018 our Child Attorneys contributed over 5600 volunteer hours representing children. We truly cannot do it without you!

As you may know, I began my role as the Managing Attorney at OCA in July 2018 after 8 years as a Deputy Child Advocate. One of the struggles I have found is that it is not easy to connect with all 258 child attorney volunteers. However, it is my hope that this newsletter will help you to stay connected to what is going on at OCA; including upcoming training, links to interesting articles, and other information that will allow you to better represent your child clients. I hope you will find it useful. That being said, please remember that I am always here to answer your questions, provide practical support or even just to lend an ear.

Thank you again for all your hard work.

OCA's Deputy Child Advocate, Eliza Hirst, Esq., wrote two fantastic articles for the American Bar Association. The first is "Five Ways Lawyers Can Build Resilience in Child Clients." These are practical tools we can all use with our clients that will immediately make a positive impact in their lives. The second article, co-authored with Cathy Krebs from the ABA, is titled "Five Things about Trauma that Children's Lawyers Should Know."

I strongly encourage you to click the links to see what Eliza has to say.

Who better to start off our appreciation of our volunteers then to celebrate OCA's longest serving child attorney volunteer, Shaku Bhaya. Shaku is a partner at Doroshow Pasquale Krawitz & Bhaya and has been active as an OCA volunteer since September 2000.
Over the past 18 years, Shaku has represented seven children in DFS custody, including a sibling group that she represented for almost ten years. In reflecting on her long service for OCA Shaku said, "I did not really understand my impact on some of the children I have represented until I received a Facebook message from a (now adult) child client thanking me for advocating and believing in them." What you do definitely makes an impact, even for those challenging teens that may not realize it for many years.
Thank you Shaku for your commitment to Delaware's children and OCA!

The Annual Reports for both the Child Protection Accountability Commission (CPAC) and OCA were recently published and links can be found below. Be sure to check out the Volunteer Honor Roll starting on page 15 of the OCA Annual Report to see all the members of the Delaware Bar who volunteer to represent children for OCA.

The Child Protection Accountability Commission's Fiscal Year 2018 Annual Report can be found here.

The Office of the Child Advocate's Fiscal Year 2018 Annual Report can be found here.

Spring 2019

Happy Spring Everyone!

-Kelly

Representing Teens in DFS Custody

Wilmington: May 15th 12-1:30pm
Dover: May 23rd 12-1:30pm

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April is Child Abuse Prevention Month.

Show your support by wearing blue on
Friday, April 5th.