On May 13, 2024, Crain’s Chicago Business published an article entitled, “The child welfare system is hurting the kids it was designed to protect. Why?” The answer to the question is a complicated one, but the issues facing Illinois’ foster care system are stubborn and longstanding.
My grandmother was placed in foster care in Illinois when she was very young. She didn’t like to talk about her time in care, and she was passed away when I was in second grade, so many of the details are murky. We know that Illinois placed her in a Chicago orphanage called the St. Joseph’s Home for the Friendless. She was eventually adopted, given a new first name, and, decades later, as an adult, discovered she had been placed at St. Joseph’s with a biological sister. My family has gleaned that my grandmother’s experience at St. Joseph’s was not positive.
St. Joseph’s Home for the Friendless is long gone, but the Illinois foster care system is still harming and traumatizing children. Of course, this does not mean every actor in the system is bad. There are plenty of goodhearted and caring caseworkers, social service providers, and foster placements. But when a system is overburdened, underfunded, and understaffed, it will fail children.
B.H. v. Johnson
In 1988, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a class action lawsuit, B.H. v. Johnson, against Illinois DCFS on behalf of 22,000 children, alleging violations of their civil rights. The goal of the lawsuit was to reform the broken Illinois foster care system to ensure children were placed in safe and stable homes, to reduce caseloads, and to implement better training for staff, among other things. A consent decree was approved by a federal court in 1991. Amazingly, Illinois’ foster care system is still operating under that decree today, because it has not yet met its reform obligations.
The ACLU states, “The road to reforming DCFS continues to be fraught with obstacles.”
- For example, in 2012, a federal court ordered DCFS to bring caseworker caseloads, which became too high, back into compliance with the consent decree.
- Two years later, “the ACLU advised DCFS of reports about severe shortages of mental health services and substandard conditions at various residential treatment centers treating youth in care. The data indicated, among other things, that hundreds of youth were at shelters, detention centers, juvenile prisons, psychiatric hospitals, and other restrictive settings waiting for the services and placements they desperately needed.” In September 2016, the court ultimately approved an amended plan requiring certain changes within DCFS to address these issues.
- In 2018, the ACLU filed an emergency motion, which the court granted, seeking the discharge of children in DCFS custody from Chicago Lakeshore Hospital after discovering allegations of physical and sexual abuse at the hospital.
- “Due to DCFS’ lack of progress under the Implementation Plan, in 2018, the ACLU asked the Court to appoint a Special Master to assist the parties with dispute resolution and mediation. The Court appointed a Special Master in December 2018 . . . .”
Illinois Foster Care System Today
According to Crain’s, DCFS is still failing children in multiple areas. “Children were sleeping on state office floors while waiting for placements and being held longer than necessary in hospitals, and the agency had eliminated 500 shelter beds.” These failures are unacceptable. Imagine what the experience is like for a child—who is already traumatized because they were removed from their home and then has to spend multiple nights sleeping on a DCFS office floor.
Reform, which is desperately needed in Illinois, can take many forms, including through new legislation, pressure from awareness campaigns and media attention, and litigation.
At ALM Law, we represent children who were abused while in foster care. This includes children who were abused in residential facilities, emergency shelters, psychiatric residential treatment facilities, group homes, and foster homes. These abuses are usually symptomatic of broader systemic failures. For instance, children are at risk of harm when caseworkers fail to visit them once a month in their placements, when state agencies fail to properly monitor the congregate care facilities they license, or when agencies fail to investigate allegations of abuse while children are in care.
The situation is dire, but it is possible to fix Illinois’ foster care system. To do so, we need to feel a sense of urgency around this issue, people need to come forward and share their experiences, and advocates must be willing to fight for justice.
At ALM Law, we want to be part of the solution. Therefore, we are happy to schedule free consultations with anyone who was harmed while in foster care in Illinois.