Illinois DCFS Launches Child Welfare Dashboard and Study of Child Protection Services to Increase Transparency and Accountability

Can you help me Shed some light on our family problems with DCFS’s blatant disregard for removing this couple's baby solely on the foundation that they have a label as intellectually disabled without even meeting them?

This is what I saw in this press release. Nothing but fluff and pretty talk about how this new study and advisory board will make the Department of Children and Family Service more transparent, and it will take 24 months to conduct this study. Well, what about the families that are fighting right now? What about the caseworkers who are overloaded on cases, so they start what I call "Label Profiling"? Plus, every name on that list of advisory board had a Ph.D. behind their name; where are the ordinary family members, Mothers, Fathers, and Grandma who have been through the trenches or had to fight for their children and then watch others who did not deserve their children back get them and that parent did something worse or even death of that child. I am a mother of biologically differently-abled children and a mom figure (well, mother in every sense except blood) to sometimes more than I can count. I love every one of those children to or through adulthood. I have stood by them, taught them, and cared for them when everyone else wrote them off.

Currently, my mission is to help one of my, your term Fictive-Kin, daughter and son fight for the right to show they can be good parents to their daughter; while DCFS is ignoring them, they place their baby with her biological family members who have rap sheets that are two pages long for, drugs, embezzlement, abuse and the death of her three year old brother from shaken baby syndrome. This is what the system does. It ignores the parents because they are differently-abled and have a label but overlooks that everyone around them is screaming at what they are doing to this baby. Here is just a part of their story. I hope it will help you understand that there are better ways of handling staffing shortages. Ask Senator Dick Durbin; I sent him a proposal of ways to help cut down on staffing shortages. Please help me get this baby away from my daughter's biological family, who only wants her baby because they can and are doing it to torture her more than they did in her past.  

I hope you will see what a travesty and ignorance on DCFS's part in this case. They saw a label attached to this couple as Intellectually disabled and, with their staff storage, thought they wouldn't understand what they were doing; they have no rights or the intelligence to care for their little girl; therefore, we do not have to follow the rules and regulations of this couple's parental rights. This ID couple could not understand and would continue their lives like they did not even have a baby. An Adjudicatory hearing is supposed to happen within the first 90 days, which gives the parents and other witnesses to speak on behalf of the parents; in this case, we are a year into the court process, and not once has an adjudication hearing happened, and no one not even the parents has been able to speak on their behalf.   That is wrong. They know everything that DCFS is doing to them, and they want their baby girl out of her abusive biological family relative custody, which happened because of unhealthy and unsafe living conditions and poor weight gain. During visits, they could smell strong urine from the baby and her car seat, and she was covered in bites. When confronted, the caseworker found 18 cats in the relative foster placement home, along with bed bugs. Just yesterday, we had a pre-appeal hearing to remove their daughter from foster placement, again because her biological dad hired an attorney and appealed the DCFS's decision to move her from their home, so DCFS put their daughter back in that same unhealthy and unsafe home. During this telephone call, the administrative judge told them that she was disgusted about how they were getting emails about this case. As this couple tried to explain what was happening, the Administrative person would interrupt or cut them off mid-sentence. Then she said that she had decided, and the appeal hearing was denied; she had another pre-hearing call to make. I am sorry, but no one should be treated this way. In department  337-180 (b) (1) of the pre-hearing paperwork we received, line 4, which is highlighted, says that they are entitled to all the documentation, records, service plan, etc., except they have requested it several times and were told that they did not need it, Suzzanne's court-appointed lawyer had them. Yet this lawyer has not been present in the courtroom on three court dates and has repeatedly told Suzzanne to sign the termination paperwork so she could get to other cases; she never returns her calls.  The parents were indicated on abuse and neglect, but how were they abusing or neglecting their daughter when DCFS took protective custody of the child before she left the NICU? Their daughter never made it to their home. This couple was told that they needed to prove they could care for their child; my question is, how are they to do that if they only have visitations two hours once a week? This has gone on like this for over a year now. When they ask for more time with their daughter, the DCFS caseworker tells them they do not have the resources. Matthew at Senator Matt McClure’s office has been trying to help. He has been of great help, but his liaison could only go so far. I want to help get legislation that will protect people who are Differently-abled and not have to live in fear that their children will be taken away just because they have a label. My research shows it is happening to many differently-abled couples just because they have a label again. I'm afraid that's not right. I have talked to a blind mother who also had to fight to keep her child. Yes, caseworkers are overworked and have huge caseloads, but that does not give them the right to reject them because they are labeled.