{"id":12896,"date":"2012-02-16T15:28:02","date_gmt":"2012-02-16T20:28:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=12896"},"modified":"2012-02-16T15:28:02","modified_gmt":"2012-02-16T20:28:02","slug":"child-services-executive-director-back-home-to-serve","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/?p=12896","title":{"rendered":"Child Services Executive Director Back Home To Serve"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>BY IRIS B. HOLTON<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong> Sentinel City Edito<\/strong>r<\/p>\n<p>For more than 20 years, <strong>Mrs. Lorita Shirley<\/strong> has campaigned for children in state custody. Last month, Eckerd Community Alternatives was awarded the contract to provide services to Hillsborough County, replacing Hillsborough Kids, Inc., (HKI).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mrs. Shirley<\/strong> now serves as the Executive Director of the Circuit 13, CBC Lead Agency for child welfare services in Hillsborough County.\u00a0\u00a0 <strong>Mrs. Shirley<\/strong> introduced herself to the community Tuesday during a news conference with <strong>David Wilkins<\/strong>, Secretary of State, Department of Children and Families.<\/p>\n<p>During a telephone interview <strong>Ms. Shirley<\/strong> said, \u201cI am coming back home. I\u2019m happy to be back in my own community working. Our children are being pulled from their homes and placed in the system, and are not connected to their relatives or people in the community.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur belief at Eckerd is in God and respect for all. We are committed to kids and our vision is to provide every child with an opportunity to succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She further stated that she plans to reconnect with the minority communities and call on members of the community to step up.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mrs. Shirley<\/strong> said she believes in being accessible to the community and keeping an open line of communications. She wants to know about things not done correctly. Echoing the philosophy of Eckerd, her goal is to focus on safety, quality outcomes, accountability, and transparency.<\/p>\n<p>A Florida native and longtime Hillsborough County resident,<strong> Mrs. Shirley<\/strong> completed her education earning BSW and MSW degrees from Florida State University.<\/p>\n<p>She began her career with the Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services. Her leadership role began in Osceola County.<br \/>\nShe became the Executive Director and served in Pinellas and Pasco Counties, overseeing the second largest child welfare system in the state. Mrs. Shirley and her team are currently preparing to fulfill their contract on July 1st.<\/p>\n<p>A Hillsborough County resident, <strong>Mrs. Shirley<\/strong> commuted for several years. Now, she looks forward to working in her own community.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mrs. Shirley<\/strong> is married and is the mother of three daughters. She is a member of First Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church, in St. Petersburg, and attends Love First Christian Center, in Tampa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>BY IRIS B. HOLTON Sentinel City Editor For more than 20 years, Mrs. Lorita Shirley has campaigned for children in state custody. Last month, Eckerd Community Alternatives was awarded the contract to provide services to Hillsborough County, replacing Hillsborough Kids, Inc., (HKI). Mrs. Shirley now serves as the Executive Director of the Circuit 13, CBC [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":210,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/210"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12896\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flsentinel.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}