SEATTLE – Casey Family Programs, the nation’s largest foundation dedicated solely to providing and improving—and ultimately preventing the need for—foster care, announced today the election of Dr. Sharon McDaniel to its board of trustees.
Dr. McDaniel is the founder, president, and CEO of A Second Chance Inc., a Pennsylvania-based non-profit agency that provides safe, secure, and nurturing environments for children who are being cared for by their relatives or close family friends – also called "kinship care."
“We are very fortunate to have one of the nation’s leading child-welfare experts join the Casey team,” said Board Chair Gary R. Severson. “As an alumna of foster care, Sharon will bring valuable personal experience and credibility to our constituent work and to the field of child welfare. We look forward to her contributions and perspectives on how we can continue to improve opportunities for the more than half-million youth in foster care in the United States today.”
Casey Family Programs has a presence in ten states across the country and collaborates with foster, kinship and adoptive parents to provide safe, permanent and loving families for youth in foster care. The foundation also works with counties, states, and American Indian and Alaska Native tribes to improve services and outcomes for the more than 500,000 young people in out-of-home care. The foundation is especially committed to working with youth over the age of 11 because they and their siblings may have fewer opportunities in the public child-welfare system for placement in foster families and for adoption.
“It’s an honor to join the country’s leading foster care organization, which, for nearly 40 years, has helped to positively affect the lives of thousands of our nation’s youth in foster care,” said Dr. McDaniel. “But with the number of young people in foster care doubling in the last 15 years, there is much work to be done, and I’m glad to be on the front lines with Casey.”
Dr. McDaniel also serves as co-chair the Statewide Task Force of Kinship Care in Pennsylvania and is also co-facilitator for the Allegheny County Foster Care and Kinship Care Initiative. She is a former board member of the Black Administrators in Child Welfare and was a panel member for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services National Advisory Kinship Care Panel.
Dr. McDaniel also has firsthand experience because she was in foster care as a youth, and today she is a kin caregiver. Over the last 20 years, Dr. McDaniel has authored several articles and papers on child welfare and has received numerous local and national honors and awards. Dr. McDaniel’s term on the Casey board will run through 2007.