(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — The head of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services has been hit with yet another contempt of court citation over the way ward of the state has been bounced around.
Cook County Public Guardian Charles Golbert said the citation issued by Cook County Judge Patrick Murphy is the eighth such contempt order issued by the judge against DCFS Director Marc Smith in the past 11 weeks.
This time, Golbert says, it is over the treatment of a 14-year old girl. The girl has been bounced around 21 times among 15 different places, including spending two months in a psychiatric hospital which, Golbert says, was weeks longer than she should have been there.
“She was at a series of temporary foster homes for a few days. Right now, she’s living shelter. Actually, right now, she’s living in a basement of a shelter, living in a basement of a long dark windowless hall,” he said.
The state can solve the problem with short-, medium- and long-range solutions.
In the short term, he says the state can pay more to placement homes it already contracts with.
“You don’t need a PhD in management theory or social work. You just need the political will and the resources. We can fill existing beds in the next very short period of time by increasing salaries,” Golbert said.
Medium term, he says, the state needs to expand residential and group home capacity.
In the long term, the state needs a more robust system of community-based services so the state can move to expanded therapeutic foster care, he said.
A DCFS spokesperson tells WBBM Newsradio the agency is doing its best in a strained system:
“The Department of Children and Family Services is dedicated to keeping children safe and strengthening families. We are working aggressively addressing the decades-long challenge of a lack of community resources and facilities for children with complex behavioral health needs, which has been exacerbated by an increased demand in social services in recent years. Every single day, DCFS works with its network of providers and foster parents in an ongoing effort to place these children in settings that can provide the appropriate level of care and in which the children can grow and flourish.”
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