By JOHN POERTNER and CHARLES RAPP
CHILDREN were a priority of both political parties in last year's gubernatorial election. Gov. James R. Thompson and Michael J. Bakalis both said that education and the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) should receive more money, although they also campaigned for tax and spending freezes or tax rebates. Additional dollars are needed badly by DCFS, but they are difficult to find because "Proposition 13" and the "Thompson Proposition" have been interpreted as precluding new or expanded government services. What was missing from the gubernatorial debates and the last legislative session was discussion of child welfare issues which do not require more dollars.
DCFS mandate
The mandate of DCFS is quite broad. The agency has traditionally provided or administered services for orphans and dependent, neglected and abused children. But in recent years, DCFS has also been delegated responsiblity for delinquent children under age 13 and minors in need of supervision who have violated orders of the juvenile court. In addition, the department now acts as guardian of neglected or dependent minors who have been made wards of the court. These new responsibilities reflect a shift from the counties to a central administration by the state.
Public pressure for action on child abuse has forced legislation on the issue. In 1975, Illinois enacted revisions in the Child Abuse Reporting Act which required more categories of persons to report suspected child abuse. The revisions also added mental cruelty to the categories of abuse and raised the age of children covered under the act from 16 to 18. The act gave responsibility to the department for investigating suspected abuse cases and neglect within 24 hours of the report. DCFS must also provide protective services to prevent further harm to abused children, while preserving family unity whenever possible. Because of heightened public awareness of child abuse and the broadening of reporting requirements, there has been a tremendous rise in the number of reports filed with the department. From fiscal year 1975 through fiscal year 1978 child abuse and neglect reports increased from 2,801 cases to 13,453 cases.
If this were not enough, DCFS must also regulate, license and set standards for child care facilities. The department must develop a plan for day care in the state, coordinate all-day care activities for children and provide day care services to children in low-income, mobile and migrant families. The Interstate Compact for the Placement of Children provides for the department to protect the interests of children from other states who are placed in Illinois and of children placed by Illinois in other states. Finally, the department is mandated to establish and maintain supportive child welfare services and to improve voluntary services throughout the state so that services and care are available on an equal basis throughout Illinois.
Other state agencies
The breadth of the DCFS mandate tends to give the impression that the department is the only state agency
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concerned with child and family problems. Because other state agencies as well as the general citizenry have tended to accept this view, DCFS has been blamed for almost everything: for not ending child abuse, preventing runaways or halting other unacceptable behavior.
One example of conflict between DCFS and another state agency involves those children who are, in the language of the Department of Mental Health and Developmental Disabilities (DMHDD), "seriously emotionally disturbed and mentally ill children and adolescents who have been hospitalized for psychiatric disorders or who are at high risk of community extrusion because of their dysfunctional behavior and/or related clinical psychological problems." The 1978 report of the President's Commission on Mental Health found this group to be under-served, and consistent with that finding, this group of youth is a priority of DMHDD. It is not clear, however, how much of DM HDD's $400 million fiscal 1979 budget (of which $300 million is allocated to maintain institutions), is devoted to children. Presently, Illinois children compose about 38 per cent of the population, yet only about 17 per cent of DMHDD clients are under the age of 20.
It is also not clear how these youth are to be identified. Certainly many children who are DCFS wards are in danger of "community extrusion because of their dysfunctional behavior." For which of these will DMHDD assume responsibility? DCFS workers indicate that it is extremely difficult to obtain DMHDD services for children in their caseloads. While local mental health clinics will readily accept children and their parents for counseling, it is difficult to obtain other services such as homemaking or advocacy, which can be more effective. If DMHDD accepts responsibility for a group of children, there is still the question of who will make decisions for the child. With DCFS acting as guardian, can DMHDD plan services effectively? On the other hand, is it the best policy to have the agency which plans services (DCFS or DMHDD) also serve as legal guardian for these children?
Another example of undefined boundaries arises in connection with the Commission on Delinquency Prevention. During the last legislative session, the Illinois Status Offenders Program was the subject of much political maneuvering and was transferred from DCFS to the Commission on Delinquency Prevention. A short time later, the Governor's Cost Control Task Force recommended that the entire commission be merged with DCFS. Implementation of this recommendation will undoubtedly bring about more maneuvering.
Juvenile court system
A collaborative relationship between DCFS and the juvenile court system is also lacking. Juvenile court personnel say that DCFS workers do not adequately plan for their wards, do not keep adequate records, do not report to the court on time and do not know how to present themselves or a case in court. On the other hand, DCFS workers report that they are often forced to wait in juvenile court for hours or even days for their cases to be heard. The time wasted could be used to help clients. DCFS workers also say that juvenile court personnel do not understand child welfare. They report wide variation among judges on such important decisions as termination of parental rights. Some judges, they contend, will not terminate parental rights even on the most blatant evidence, while others will terminate on the scantiest evidence.
Because juvenile judges generally do not have high status in legal circles, there is a high turnover, which results in few judges who are experts in child and family situations. But even assuming that the best DCFS staff were working with the court, and that juvenile court judges were well informed on child welfare, state statutes would still present a problem. The law simply is not clear on when state intervention in family situations is appropriate, and it does not establish timetables for action when the state does intervene.
Private agencies
Citizen distrust of bureaucracies and large public payrolls has led elected officials to reduce the growth of public service staffs. Yet in Illinois, with a historically large and active private sector, political pressure has greatly increased public subsidy of private sector services. Public agencies are increasingly underwriting private agencies to provide services under government contracts and grants.
This symbiotic relationship has produced considerable strain between DCFS and private child welfare agencies. The private agencies say that they can deliver child welfare services more effectively than DCFS, but claim that the department will not fund such services adequately. The recent legal suit filed by Catholic Charities against DCFS demanding full reimbursement for foster care costs is one manifestation of this conflict. Private agencies also report that the department attempts to interfere in casework decisions and competes with the private sector rather than giving them their fair share of cases.
In contrast, DCFS says that all too often private agencies want dollars and children but not accountability. On occasion, private agencies encourage juvenile courts to assign children to them. They begin providing services and then bill DCFS. In these cases, the department has little control over case decisions and the expenditure of public dollars. This practice is common enough to have earned its own name — "reverse referrals."
DCFS workers also claim that private agencies often place children too quickly in foster care or institutions and will not move them home when such a move is appropriate. Private agencies want to be funded at a level which supports low caseloads per worker, while the department has great difficulty maintaining caseloads of reasonable size.
There is a clear lack of guidelines on
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the division of responsibility between DCFS and the private sector. Standards are lacking for placement of children in foster care; good private agency programs are not funded; and some poor ones are funded because there is a lack of information on program effectiveness. There is little research money available to study effectiveness, and performance contracts are not widely used by the department.
DCFS and the politico
In a situation as complex and confused as this one, all the parties have turned to state government for answers. The governor and his staff in the DCFS and the Bureau of the Budget, the General Assembly and its committees on children, and the various interest groups are expected to study these issues. And there is ample evidence that children are not forgotten in these circles when priorities are established. As the legislature's Commission on Children, the Joint Child Care Study Committee and perceptive statements from individual legislators indicate, the General Assembly is interested in children's issues. Citizen groups also demonstrate concern through such organizations as Catholic Charities, the Child Care Association and the League of Women Voters.
The results of all this deliberation can be measured both by the volume of reports, memos, and letters and by the legislation which results. While there have been several pieces of legislation enacted which respond to child welfare issues, most of these seem to be in response to whatever interest group is most vociferous at the time. The legislation does not reflect a comprehensive view of children's issues or any list of priorities. For example, it was only after great difficulty that DCFS received an increase of nearly $1 million in its budget for homemakers, yet a $5 million increase for institutional care was never really in doubt. This occurred despite the fact that homemaker service is very effective in keeping children in their homes and thus preventing out-of-home placement. During the fall session, an additional $5.1 million appropriation was sought for child abuse, but the bill was defeated over a legislative conflict on control of these funds. The supplemental appropriation is still caught in the same conflict in the new session.
Legislation (S.B. 301) has been enacted requiring DCFS to establish individualized case plans for its wards (S.B. 301, P.A. 80-1124). In a separate act(S.B. 1258, P.A. 80-558), the grounds for parental unfitness were changed, making it somewhat easier to terminate parental rights. While these pieces of legislation are significant, they are separate, discrete actions which do not demonstrate a broad and unified policy on state intervention in family situations and guidelines for state action once intervention takes place.
Drift into long-term care
One consequence of the present situation is the drift of children into long-term foster care. Traditionally, foster care was intended as a temporary substitute for family care. For example, a single parent who required hospitalization for surgery might need to have her children placed in foster care until she returned home. While it has since been realized that for some children, such as the profoundly retarded, long-term foster care can be a desirable plan, this is an exception and involves a rather small number of children. The most desirable outcome for foster care is for the child to return to the natural parents or, if this is not possible, to move the child into an adoptive home. These outcomes seek to insure a child's right to a permanent home.
The problem is that large numbers of children who are placed in foster care spend more than a few weeks or months in such care. In fact, many of these children spend the majority of their youth in unplanned, long-term foster care. Although this phenomenon has been identified in most large child welfare systems, it is extremely difficult to correct. In Illinois, as of September 1977, DCFS had 8,675 children in foster care, of which 54 per cent had been in care over two years. This problem is more severe in Cook County, particularly with Chicago's black children. Of the 4,726 children in long-term care, 3,380 (72 per cent) are from Cook County and 2,239 (69 per cent) of these are black.
The drift seems not to be related to the individual characteristics of the children but to the child welfare system itself. It is often assumed that children in long-term care are either handicapped, too unruly to live in a continuous family environment, or older thanaverage. These characteristics would make it more difficult to return these children to their own homes or to obtain adoptive homes for them. These characteristics do not seem to be true of such children in Chicago, however. In this group, 46 per cent are under 12 years of age, and only 12 per cent have handicaps. In addition, two-thirds of these children have been in only one foster home, which indicates the child's ability to live in a family setting. If the phenomenon of drift is difficult to manage in stable organizations, it is even more difficult in
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the present Illinois situation because of the lack of consensus on priorities for children. The result is that these children are being deprived of their right to a permanent home not just by DCFS, but by a system which does not encourage thoughtful, permanent planning.
Directions for change
There is a clear need for a comprehensive agenda for children in Illinois. There are many groups involved in defining these issues, yet few priorities have been agreed upon. Not all of these children issues can be solved concurrently or immediately, but there should be public discussion of these issues leading to the establishment of priorities. Any one of the groups already mentioned could begin this process, but it should seek consensus rather than lobby for its own particular priorities. There is presently discussion of an Illinois Conference on Children much like a White House Conference. The results of these conferences are usually diverse and unfocused. However, if establishing an agenda for children were its main concern, the results could then be the target of the administration, legislature and other private interest groups.
The Juvenile Court and DCFS need to work together to assure that Illinois children live in permanent homes, whenever possible. Juvenile judges need to receive adequate training in child welfare, a need which is underscored by the greater discretion juvenile judges have in contrast to other judges. DCFS workers need to understand the importance of legal considerations and be adequately trained in performing their role in court. The court and DCFS should jointly define what information each needs to plan adequately for children. The court, DCFS and the General Assembly should establish standards for state intervention in family situations and timelines for actions once intervention has begun.
DCFS and the private child welfare agencies must cooperate fully. Clearly, neither DCFS nor the private sector can supply all of the child welfare services which are in demand, but both DCFS and the private agencies need to be held accountable. Each has a role in the child welfare system, but DCFS should exhibit leadership in defining the roles. The result could be a relationship to better serve the children of Illinois.□
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