Becky Shipp, a key Senate staffer on child welfare issues for many years, has passed away at the age of 63.
“I am stunned and bereft,” said Diedra Henry-Spires, a fellow member of the Senate Finance Committee staff, in a social media comment reacting to Shipp’s death. “We shared a commitment to children that went beyond political party lines. I am sending your entire family love and condolences during this time of tremendous loss. She loved her family! Becky became more than a colleague, she was my friend.”
After obtaining a Master of Fine Arts and teaching writing at several Boston area universities, Shipp joined the staff of fellow Utahn, Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch in 1993. She spent 10 years in the senator’s office, and then another 15 as a health and human services policy advisor for the Senate Finance Committee, of which Hatch, who passed away in 2022, was the ranking Republican.
Shipp departed the Senate Finance Committee in 2017. The year after she left, former President Donald Trump signed into law the Family First Prevention Services Act, which was born of a bipartisan effort by Hatch and Sen. Ron Wyden, the leading Democrat on the Finance Committee. While the impactfulness of the bill is far from certain at this point, its central aims are to increase federal funds for preventing foster care while limiting federal participation in the placement of children in group homes, residential care and institutions. That latter goal was a point of passion for her boss, Hatch, who had proposed limitations on funding for group care several times before.
The Family First Act was stymied for several years, most memorably in 2017 when it was dropped out of a bigger health package called the CURES Act. But in 2018, it was quietly added to a spending bill necessary to stave off a government shutdown.
“I felt this flood of joy that this could happen,” Shipp told The Imprint about finding out Family First had become law. “I turned off the phone and sat there and savored this moment because these don’t come along that often.”
Laura Berntsen, who was also a policy advisor for the Senate Finance Committee, said Shipp was key to the movement of that and other child welfare policies.
“Fueled by a deep commitment to seek the direct input of youth in foster care and a sense of urgency to improve the system, Becky generated the momentum for change,” she said, in an email to Youth Services Insider. “Her unique ability to build coalitions and amplify the voices of foster youth was unparalleled.”
Shipp spent the next nearly four years as vice president of the Sheridan Group, before hanging out a shingle as an independent consultant. Shortly after her retirement from the Senate Finance Committee, Hatch commended Shipp in a floor speech.
“Her deduction and zealousness to defending the less fortunate should serve as an example to all of us,” he said. Of her impact on child welfare policy, he remarked: “Anyone in Washington who knows anything about these issues knows Becky has played a singular role in the creation and preservation of the safety net we now have in place.”
Lisa Dickson, communications chair for Alumni of Care Together Improving Outcomes Now Ohio (ACTION Ohio), credited Shipp for championing the views of youth with lived experience in foster care on Capitol Hill. The group made annual visits to Capitol Hill between 2013 and 2020 both as a leadership development program and to share direct input with legislators and their staff about child welfare policy.
“Becky Shipp made us feel welcome and supported,” Dickson told Youth Services Insider via email this week. “She always took the time to listen to youth.”