Defending Families Against DCFS

How can the judiciary help narrow the front door to child protection?
December 04, 2020

Across the country, too many children enter foster care each year, with the majority (62%) entering as a result of neglect. State mandatory reporting laws contain expansive criteria for reporting child maltreatment, including broad categories of neglect that include poverty-related issues that do not warrant the involvement of child protection agencies. Subjecting families to unnecessary involvement has detrimental human and socioeconomic implications, especially for communities of color. Judge Ernestine S. Gray of the Orleans Parish Juvenile Court in New Orleans understands the trauma families and children endure when they are separated. Her approach to reserve foster care for only the most extreme cases has fundamentally shifted the front door of child welfare in New Orleans Parish.

https://www.casey.org/judge-gray-interview/

Commentary on the media.
Illinois, January, 8th 2024.

Critically examining how the media protects the policy and procedure implemented by DCFS and the judicial authorities who neglect to act on behalf of justice and the rights of children and parents.

Described as a symptom of child placement option shortages, wards of the state in Illinois languish in institutions and facilities long after they should have returned home. State administrators and reporting media, fail to describe this crisis of child welfare mismanagement as the symptom of what it really is; Unbridled, unaccountable, authority to separate children from their families. Unwilling to admit the realities of state and federal laws, or state policy and procedure, granting exceptionally gross authority to separate children from their families far to frequently. Resulting in an over abundance of wards.
It is not more placement options that Illinois DCFS needs. It is not more money. Rather what DCFS needs is to stop removing children from families as often as they do. Rather than having only one option to end alleged child abuse and neglect: parent and child separation. The department should provide children and families with services that rehabilitate, unite, secure, and strengthen the resiliency and protective factors of Illinois families.

While the department continues to separate families rather than unite them, it will continue to neglect the welfare of wards whom it claims to be protecting.

Report: 1,009 children in Illinois DCFS care kept in facilities longer than they needed to | WICS Over 1,000 kids in Illinois Department of Children and Family Servicescare were kept in facilities longer than they needed to be, according to a report released

Let’s celebrate our progress and share stories of family triumph during this National Reunification Month.

Reunification is Worthy of Immeasurable Time, A Message From Aysha E. Schomburg—June 2023 | Vol. 24, No. 5 Written by Associate Commissioner Aysha E. Schomburg In a perfect world every family would have what it needs, whether that is concrete supports such as housing and cash, or even access to culturally appropriate