The person who advocates in court for children who’ve been abused or neglected said the state’s Department of Children and Family Services is not only failing to meet the needs of kids in its care — but that the situation is getting worse.
Cook County Public Guardian Charles Golbert shared concerns in a letter to the court. He wrote children averaging 12 years of age are being held in locations such as psychiatric hospitals “beyond medical necessity.” The average stay in 2023 was 94 days — a 20% increase from the prior year, according to DCFS.
Golbert said this is not how the state should be caring for children.
“It’s devastating,” he said. “These are already traumatized kids, and they see other kids come in, have an acute psychiatric episode, be treated and promptly leave when they’re ready to be discharged after a couple of weeks. But their guardian DCFS never comes for them because there’s no placement for them.”
Just recently, the crisis-plagued agency gained a new leader, Heidi Mueller. Golbert said she has her work cut out for her.
DCFS previously eliminated 500 residential beds under former Gov. Bruce Rauner and has yet to make up for those lost services. Golbert said the state needs to do more.
“They promised that in return, they would expand therapeutic foster care, which is a great idea,” he said. “But the problem is the community-based services don’t exist. So, Gov. Pritzker was just trumpeting 80 new placements, that’s great. That’s a great start. I applaud that. But they have hundreds and hundreds of more placements to go.”
In response, DCFS provided a statement to WTTW News that said, in part, every state in the U.S. is “contending with a children’s behavioral health crisis.”
“DCFS is responding to this nationwide challenge with urgency,” the statement said, “creating more than 200 new placements in the past year alone with 110 new beds coming online this year, scouring the nation for beds in other states when courts place kids in facilities that don’t exist in Illinois, and bringing on record levels new staff to serve youth with the Department now at its highest headcount in 15 years.”
