As part of an ongoing effort to overhaul the state’s troubled child welfare system, a federal judge on Wednesday approved a plan focused on keeping more kids in stable, home-like settings instead of institutions.
The proposal aspires to “truly reform” the system while assuring the safety and well-being of some of the state’s most vulnerable children, according to the plan filed jointly by the Department of Children and Family Services and the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois.
Initiatives include substantial retraining of staff, expansion of community-based mental health services, placement of more youths into permanent homes and a reduction in the number of juvenile state wards in residential treatment centers and other institutional settings.
“The court approved the implementation plan today, but we actually began implementing the plan six months ago and are seeing some progress already,” DCFS Director George Sheldon said Wednesday in an emailed statement. “There is still much to do.”
The comprehensive plan was developed after a court-appointed panel of experts last year found DCFS suffered from systemic deficiencies and needed sweeping reforms. U.S. District Court Judge Jorge Alonso appointed the experts after the ACLU, which monitors DCFS as part of a decades-old consent decree, returned to court in wake of the Tribune’s 2014 “Harsh Treatment” investigation of residential treatment centers.
This is not the first time a federal judge has signed off on an implementation plan, typically regarded as a drastic measure, but Claire Stewart, ACLU staff attorney who works on the group’s Institutional Reform Project, said she is hopeful the accountability tied to this plan will ensure sustainable change.
“The department is in crisis right now,” Stewart said. “The is really the start. It is going to take time, but we’re seeing hints in this plan that adequate services may be available in time. The reason that we feel positive about the plan is because it has court oversight and because it’s being monitored by independent experts.”
Sheldon, who took the helm last year amid turmoil and a revolving door of leadership, said the agency should reach children and families earlier, working to keep them out of DCFS custody if possible.
“For those children who do come into care, we want to do a much better job in dealing with the trauma they have suffered in the past,” he said. “We can avoid so many problems in their lives and put them on a better path if we make sure that every young person in our care has a responsible, stable adult in their lives.”
More Top Picks Smoke Detectors
A number of pilot programs outlined in the plan aims to achieve that stability for the children in care, including use of therapeutic foster homes to reduce the number of youths in residential facilities, psychiatric hospitals and juvenile detention. Other pilot programs underway statewide are aimed at strengthening community-based care and support for youths who are involved in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems, and coordinating care through a centralized team for DCFS wards with severe behavioral or psychiatric needs in the least restrictive placement possible.
Peter Digre, who recently was named DCFS associate director, oversees the reforms and will have “complete authority and responsibility for operationalizing” them, according to the plan that was initially filed in February and underwent months of revisions and fine-tuning.
“The overwhelming reality that confronts us is that every single child, every single youth needs to know that they have a committed and consistent adult who is theirs and is making a lifetime commitment to them,” Digre said.
Digre, who will answer directly to Sheldon, said getting kids into safe and stable living situations stands as the plan’s overarching theme — and it is something Illinois ranks poorly in achieving. Digre has authority to “change things that just don’t make sense” and said he finds it “ridiculous” that kids often have multiple caseworkers.
“That caseworker relationship is very, very important to them, and if you’re changing all the time, you’re just creating another loss for them,” he said.
While many of the plan’s long-term initiatives appear promising, the placement of children in the immediate future remains a concern, said Danielle Gomez, assistant public guardian with the Cook County Public Guardian’s office. She questioned how the agency plans to deal with the youths languishing in psychiatric hospitals beyond medical necessity, a pressing issue that was subsequently added to the revised plan.
“We understand that this takes time,” Gomez said. “But that’s a lot of kids in the interim who are sitting and waiting.”
Twitter @deldeib