State official questioned on child deaths

During a Senate confirmation hearing on Monday, Gov. Jack Markell's selection to lead a key Cabinet agency faced questions about the deaths of four Sussex County children since May.

Caregivers of all four children were either being investigated or assisted by the Delaware Department of Services for Children, Youth and Their Families when the children died, said Joseph Smack, a spokesman for the agency.

Few details were available on Monday, but three of the children who died were infants between 1 and 3 months old whose deaths were related to drug use by a caregiver, according to Smack. The fourth child, a 7-year-old, committed suicide in September, he said.

Carla Benson-Green, who has worked for DSCYF for more than three decades, most recently as an administrator in the Family Services division, was unanimously confirmed by Senate lawmakers on Monday to lead the agency.

She succeeds Jennifer Ranji, who was confirmed in October as a new Family Court Judge.

But while she was unanimously confirmed on Monday, she faced questions about the agency's actions to protect the four children.

"We have to look at that and come up with ... protocols to make sure our children are kept safe," said Senate Minority Leader Gary Simpson, R-Milford, who questioned Benson-Green on the deaths. "I know you don't have an easy job."

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Benson-Green said three of the cases involved drug abuse, saying, "We are having a tremendous struggle with heroin just like all of the other agencies."

The death of a 1-month-old in September involved co-sleeping with drug involvement, Smack said by email after the confirmation hearing Monday. The death of a 3-month-old in October is being blamed on sudden unexplained infant death syndrome and involved drug use by a caregiver, he said. Another 3-month-old died in May, the result of abuse and neglect "with drug use by a caregiver as a factor," Smack said.

"We were either active in investigation or providing treatment services to the families involved in these cases," Smack said in the email. "Safety assessments are done for all cases and safety plans, when warranted, are put in place."

Not all of the deaths have been reviewed by the state's Child Death, Near Death, Stillbirth Review Commission, Smack said. A report on the 3-month-old who died in May is expected in December, he said, but could not say when details would be made available in the other cases.

Benson-Green is now tasked with leading the agency responsible for providing services for abused children, coordinating adoptions and foster care and overseeing services for Delaware children facing substance abuse or mental health challenges.

During her tenure at DSCYF, which dates to 1982, Benson-Green also has led the Office of Child Care Licensing and supervised investigators and caseworkers focused on adoption and treatment services. As secretary, she will earn an annual salary of $133,241.

Contact Jonathan Starkey at (302) 983-6756, on Twitter @jwstarkey or at jstarkey@delawareonline.com.