Our Staff & Advisors
Katie Page Sander, Director
Katie is a 1997 graduate of the University of Michigan School of Social Work with a Major in Community Organization and a Minor in Interpersonal Practice. She has thirteen years of experience in child welfare, including direct practice, supervision, training, program management, and policy development. Her work spans across the fields of foster care, adoption, Youth in Transition, Parenting Education, Wrap-around programs, and prevention services at various community agencies, including The Judson Center, Hands Across the Water and Washtenaw County Public Health. Katie continues to facilitate monthly support groups for families in Southeast Michigan who have adopted older children.
Additionally, Katie has worked on behalf of vulnerable children while living and volunteering abroad in Bolivia from 2001-2002. Formerly licensed foster parents, Katie and her husband have three children, ages twelve, ten and four, including a daughter adopted from Bolivia at age four, a son adopted at age six from the foster care system and one biological daughter.
Read Katie's SOCC Blog!
Gail Bagale, Consultant
Gail has been a mental health clinician, an administrator, an educator, and an advocate for women, children, and other vulnerable populations who would not otherwise have a voice in society. For seventeen years she worked in a Family Service agency, and became part of a movement that worked collaboratively with families, communities, and the larger society. As a clinician, administrator, professional trainer and community educator to mental health professionals, police, and the community-at-large, she endeavored to empower families and communities to overcome problems including domestic violence, child abuse, poverty and social isolation.
In 2007, recognizing that Michigan’s foster care system was in crisis, Mrs. Bagale organized the Save Our Children Coalition Summit, which was co-sponsored by Child’s Hope and the University of Michigan-Dearborn School of Education, and supported by a host of community service, health care and faith based organizations. The community was mobilized by the summit, resulting in the formation of the Save Our Children Coalition Project at the University of Michigan-Dearborn School of Education.
Rev. Kate Thoresen, Coordinator, Faith Communities Coalition on Foster Care
The Rev. Dr. Kathryn (Kate) Thoresen, B.A., M.A., M.Div., DASD, D.Min, is an ordained Presbyterian minister who has served on staff of local congregations as well as on the boards of several nonprofit organizations. She has also served as adjunct staff with the Ecumenical Theological Seminary of Detroit with their Sustaining Pastoral Excellence program. Kate is a certified spiritual director who consults with individuals and groups about their faith journeys. Her focus is on the intersection of our inner spiritual lives as expressed in outward service.
She is the coordinator of the growing grass roots movement called the Faith Communities Coalition on Foster Care. Through this Coalition there has been an increased involvement of our congregations to meet the urgent needs in foster care through numerous donation drives, recruitment of foster/adoptive parents and mentors plus service projects.
Kate is married to Tom Thoresen who has also been actively involved with the Faith Communities Coalition from its beginning. They are the parents of three adult children and one grandson. Together they are experiencing first hand the joys and challenges of being licensed respite foster parents.
Catherine Parkins, Website Manager
Catherine is a 2002 graduate of the University of Michigan-Dearborn with a B.A. in Communications and English. She joined SOCC in May 2008 as a part-time office assistant and grew with the organization to become its website manager.
No stranger to humitarian causes, Catherine has been an active volunteer/contributor with St. Dunstan Parish Food Pantry, The Salvation Army, the Michigan Humane Society, the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Michigan, and Give Kids the World.
SOCC Advisory Board Members
Ismael Ahmed, University of Michigan-Dearborn
Gail Bagale, SOCC founder/volunteer consultant
Brenda Baker-Mbacké, Michigan Foster Care Review Board
David Benjamins, Detroit Institute for Children
Paul Duford, Employment and Training Designs, Inc.
Danita Echols, Child Welfare Training Institute
Tracy Green, Detroit Center for Family Advocacy
Nicole Hoshock, Michigan Department of Human Services
Cameron D. Hosner, Children's Hospital of Michigan
Annette Howard, Life Directions
Gilda Jacobs, Michigan League for Human Services
Viola King, Juvenile Law Group
Jack Kresnak, Michigan’s Children
Shirley Mann-Gray, Children’s Hospital of Michigan
Kelly Ramsey, 3rd Judicial Circuit Court of Michigan
Amy Skehan, University of Michigan-Dearborn
Reco Spencer, Lutheran Social Services of Michigan
Trisha Stein, Child’s Hope
Mary Lynn Stevens, University of Michigan-Dearborn
Deborah Strong, Great Start Collaborative – Wayne/Student Advocacy Project
Cynthia Swift, Plymouth-Canton Community Schools (Retired)
Veda D. Thompkins, Families on the Move
Kate Thoresen, Faith Communities Coalition on Foster Care
Mary Trepanier-Street, University of Michigan-Dearborn
Nicole H. Wood, Promise Neighborhoods Initiative, The Guidance Center
Lacea Zavala, Kids-TALK, The Guidance Center
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