Beau Biden Foundation unveils mission to fight abuse

• A foundation honoring the late Beau Biden announced its mission Wednesday.
• The Delaware attorney general died in May after battling brain cancer.
• The foundation also is partnering with the National Center for Mission and Exploited Children.

A foundation honoring the late Beau Biden shared on Wednesday its vision for how it will move forward with the former state attorney general's mission to protect children from sexual predators.

Efforts by the Beau Biden Foundation for the Protection of Children will include effective education of adults on where sexual abuse can occur, signs of abuse, prevention techniques and how to act if a child says he or she has been sexually abused.

The foundation also will focus on developing the next generation of child welfare professionals and work on strengthening child protection laws around the country.

"After Beau passed, one of the things we knew is that his mission had to be continued," said Patricia Dailey Lewis, the foundation's CEO and former director of the state Department of Justice's Family Division, which Biden helped create. "So the goals were actually pretty easy. We're doing what Beau would do."

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Biden, Delaware's attorney general from 2007 until January 2015, died May 30 after a nearly two-year battle with brain cancer. The son of Vice President Joe Biden, he was 46.

In his first year in office, Beau Biden created a Child Predator Task Force to focus on catching and prosecuting those who commit sex offenses against minors. In an op-ed piece for The News Journal in 2014, he said the unit had convicted nearly 200 child sexual abusers and removed about 120 children from abusive situations.

"No one likes talking about pedophilia and predators who want to hurt our kids, but we have no choice," he wrote. "Children cannot protect themselves, and very young children, who are often the target of predators, in many cases are unable to speak for themselves. As adults, we all have a responsibility to protect children and take action when we believe a child is being abused."

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that 9.2 percent of victimized children were sexually assaulted. The National Institute of Justice says three out of four adolescents who have been sexually assaulted were victimized by someone they knew well.

Biden, who was seen as a rising star in national politics and a 2016 gubernatorial candidate, also partnered with the Darkness to Light’s Stewards of Children with the goal of educating 35,000 Delawareans about steps they can take to prevent, recognize and react responsibly to child sexual abuse. The Charleston, South Carolina, group focuses on raising the awareness, prevalence and consequences of sexual abuse.

Biden wanted to educate about 5 percent of the state's population, enough to start seeing a cultural shift, Lewis said. However, he was only able to reach 17,000 people when the program was operated by the state Department of Justice. Now the foundation will pick that up and complete Biden's goal.

"We're thrilled," said Lyndon Haviland, Darkness to Light's CEO. "First of all, Beau had a very specific vision that if we worked together smartly we could make Delaware a model in the nation for the reduction and prevention of child sex abuse."

Haviland said she's happy that Biden's vision is alive and well in Delaware and would like to expand it to more places.

"We think if we can work with the foundation to do this in Delaware, there is no reason we can't do this across the nation," she said. "We see this as the first place to making the United States a safer place for children."

The new charity was announced days after Biden's death by his widow, Hallie, and the Delaware Community Foundation. More than 600 contributions totaling about $125,000 were received in its first two days.

Vice President Joe Biden also has made finding a cure for cancer his own personal mission in the wake of his son's death. He is overseeing the so-called "moonshot" initiative for the Obama administration, which was proposed in the State of the Union address in January. On Monday, a 28-member committee of cancer experts and patient advocates to lead the effort was announced.

The Beau Biden Foundation mission is being announced in tandem with National Child Abuse Prevention Month in April.

The foundation also is partnering with the National Center for Mission and Exploited Children to bring its online safety program, NetSmatz, to Delaware schools. A fellowship offering state attorneys working in the area of child protection to address policy, legislative and legal issues also is planned on the national level.

All of these efforts are about education, Lewis said. That's because without educating people on how to deal with sexual abuse, the problem will not get better, she said.

"We're not really saving kids by locking people up. We're saving kids by preventing this," she said. "We know that it is almost universally preventable if people are educated, both children and adults."

Contact Esteban Parra at (302) 324-2299, eparra@delawareonline.com or Twitter @eparra3.

Beau Biden Foundation for the Protection of Children training sessions

The free training, which will take place in partnership with Widener University Delaware Law School and Delaware Technical Community College, is throughout the month of April at:

• Widener University Delaware Law School, Ruby R. Vale Moot Courtroom, 4601 Concord Pike, Brandywine Hundred; Monday, 1:30 p.m., Tuesday, 5:30 p.m., April 13, 11 a.m. and April 14, 7 p.m.
• Delaware Technical Community College Owens Campus, Carter Partnership Center Lecture Hall, 21179 College Drive, Georgetown; April 27, 6 p.m.
• Delaware Technical Community College Terry Campus, Corporate Training Center Room 407, 100 Campus Drive, Dover; April 28, 6 p.m. 

Visit beaubidenfoundation.org for more information.