Plans for creating Colorado’s first child ombudsman office, which aims to better protect children from abuse and neglect, are to move forward Wednesday with the first meeting of the working group appointed by Gov. Bill Ritter.
Fifteen people, selected from a pool of 40 applications, come from a variety of fields, including law enforcement and child advocacy.
They will advise Karen Beye, executive director of the Department of Human Services, on the creation of the office and hire the person who will run it.
This includes crafting a detailed working plan that outlines how the office will be established and how it will operate.
The working group “will get into issues (like) how we will keep this program autonomous from the Department of Human Services,” said Leslie Herod, senior policy adviser for the DHS.
It will also discuss the terms and length of the contract.
“We’re encouraging a multiple-year contract,” she said, “so that (the ombudsman) will not feel the contract can be terminated any time without cause.”
Members of the working panel include Shari Shink, founder and executive director of the Rocky Mountain Children’s Law Center; and Sgt. Brad Lenderink, who runs the child-abuse and missing-persons department for the Denver Police Department and served on the Colorado Child Fatality Review Committee.
“The diversity of members of this particular committee is astounding,” said Douglas County Commissioner Jack Hilbert, a working-group member.
“We’re a young county, family-oriented, with a lot of youth. We don’t have a lot of child-protection and youth issues, but they are important,” he said.
Sister Michael Delores Allegri of Denver, who was a member of the Colorado Foster Care and Permanence Task Force, has been selected along with Carla Bennett, a board member of the Colorado Council of Adoptive Families, and a volunteer cradle mom for the nonprofit Adoption Options who has cared for 87 infants over the years.
Bennett, a child-welfare advocate, has been among those working for a decade to create the office of child-protection ombudsman.
“One of the lessons learned over the years is that sometimes it takes persistence, and sometimes you have to try and try again,” she said. “It really felt good when the bill passed this year. It felt like victory.”
Colleen O’Connor: 303-954-1083 or coconnor@denverpost.com
