* Hannah Meisel at the Daily Line…
Fifty-six children died between July 1 and Jan. 1 after prior contact with the state agency charged with protecting children from abuse and neglect, according to new data from the Department of Children and Family Services’ inspector general.
The data on the first six months of the 2020 fiscal year follows a report released by the same inspector general last week, which found that 123 children had died in the 2019 fiscal year after having contact with DCFS in the previous 12 months — a 25 percent increase from the prior year.
After the release of DCFS Inspector General Meryl Paniak’s annual report last week, state officials were quick to point to the $128 million funding increase granted to DCFS in the current year’s budget, along with efforts to hire more frontline agency workers to both investigate claims of abuse and neglect and at the agency’s so-called “front door” — its overworked hotline. […]
Paniak told The Daily Line Tuesday that her preliminary numbers on child deaths “means we have a lot of work to do.”
“This is Marc Smith’s first round of getting my annual report and realizing the recommendations and the impact and having an opportunity to implement and make some changes,” Paniak said. “I think sometimes when there is difficulty, there lies opportunity. We need to take this opportunity and not wait. We have to move with a sense or urgency to make some changes now.”
* CBS 2’s Dana Kozlov…
Yet changes may not be happening fast enough. The inspector general confirms 56 more children with a DCFS history have died just in the last six months.
Two others suffered serious injuries.
“Enough is enough is enough, and the current administration has to own all the problems, and the current administration has to own the issues and injuries that are happening,” said Cook County Public Guardian Charles Golbert.
A Pritzker representative said it will take time for agency improvements to take hold. CBS 2 has obtained an internal DCFS memo outlining new screening procedures for kids who might be in danger.
- Not Again - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 9:27 am:
Keep your eye on the Charles Golbert appointment…
- frontline - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 9:30 am:
The harsh reality is no government agency or employee can stop or prevent every horrible act against a child. The caseworkers see unspeakable things on a daily basis. They are humans and can only do or take so much. This is not an excuse for unethical or negligent behavior by a handful of workers. I doubt the number is rising solely because of DCFS’ tactics or lack of resources. We live in a very high charged, negative time and our kids are being used as weapons or punching bags to deal with the trauma. It’s horrible and awful and something has to change, but not only at DCFS.
- Not Again Really - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 9:31 am:
Keep your eye on the Meryl Paniak appointment first.
Rumors circulating since October that the Governor’s Office plans on sacking her.
Talk about killing the messenger.
- Robert the Bruce - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 9:32 am:
There seemed to be more of an urgency to stop the special education isolation boxes than there is to stop the shackles and deaths of DCFS.
- Oswego Willy - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 9:33 am:
Governors own. They always do.
This administration needs to realize that short term and long term changes need to be not only implemented, but in the short term, the safety and well-being, not just superficial feel good things need to be done.
It’s troubling. Do better.
- Perrid - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 9:33 am:
Has anyone compared IL to other states? I imagine such an analysis would be very difficult, but seeing if another state does much better than us might give us a idea of where to start making improvements. I honestly think it would help inform us of what is possible. We should always try to improve DCFS and help these kids more, but we’re never going to get all the cases right every time.
I get the IG has recommendations, and most of us know or suspect the answer is some variation of “Pay up”, but I’d like to have some evidence that a recommended change actually works.
- Juvenal - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 10:00 am:
@Perrid
The federal government has compared Illinois to other states.
According to their most recent report, Illinois has seen the largest increase in Child Abuse in the Country.
From 2013 to 2017 the number of kids determined to be abused went from 18K to 28K.
During that same period, abuse rates actually went down in Florida, Texas and California.
Reporters, that report is here:
https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/cb/cm2017.pdf
“Who watches the Watchmen?”
- Cassandra - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 10:05 am:
Caseworkers do not carry crystal balls and nobody at DCFS goes to work planning to make a decision that harms a child. Many families struggle with problems of mental illness, substance misuse, and domestic violence but few kill or severely injure their children as a result. Finding the children who are truly at risk has to be a process fraught with potential catastrophe.
Having said this, there probably are some things the agency could be doing such as ruthlessly policing caseload numbers (individual caseloads not average caseloads) and paying more attention to quality of work life and access to resources for the caseworkers and their supervisors. Wrong decisions have contexts. And an overwhelmed line supervisor can be is dangerous (to good decision-making) as an overwhelmed line worker.
- Juvenal - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 10:12 am:
Cassandra-
No one is blaming the individual caseworkers.
Stop using them as a shield to defend the leadership of the agency.
This has nothing to do with “crystal balls.” There is a tsunami of cases of “subsequent oral reports” where DCFS has had multiple contacts with the family.
- Cassandra - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 10:33 am:
So what should the “leaders” be doing. And how do we know a new set would be better than the current set. Blaming the leaders doesn’t seem to have worked too well over the past couple of decades.
What I’m suggesting is hardly radical and does not “blame” the caseworkers. Make sure the people who make specific decisions about specific kids have a reasonable workload and supportive working conditions. That’s a systemic fix and some of the new reports suggest that this part of the system still needs fixing.
- Iris - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 10:35 am:
It would be a real shame to see J.B. replace Meryl Paniak. She’s doing exactly what she’s supposed to be doing. I hope she’s not expected to sugar coat this information. I’m with you @Not Again Really. … don’t kill the messenger.
- Cassandra - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 10:38 am:
I meant-”news reports”
- Enough - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 10:38 am:
Yes, “Enough is enough is enough” this IG needs to STOP exploiting child death statistics in order to make headlines and start doing the work of actually analyzing the data to help improve DCFS. Enough already!
- Robert the Bruce - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 10:55 am:
The leaders of DCFS should be doing some benchmarking with other states regarding caseloads and money to foster care parents, including emergency situations.
Armed with that, they should be demanding the funding needed to solve the problems.
- Responsa - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 11:10 am:
Stunning and unbelievable data. I want my tax dollars to be spent prioritized on fixing DCFS. Poor AJ’s death didn’t raise enough of an alarm?
- JS Mill - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 11:13 am:
DCFS is such an incredible disaster top to bottom it would be impossible to fix it in one year, but it would be nice to see some tangible progress. The lack of progress is definitely on the administrations shoulders.
- Last Bull Moose - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 12:16 pm:
Finding good leadership is hard. Not counting short term interims, I worked under four Directors. One was very good, one never made the transition from running a tiny organization to leading and managing 3,000 people, one was a cypher, and one was semi-competent but was not honest.
The only person I know that I believe could do the job, is too smart to take it.
- ktkat1 - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 12:28 pm:
The question in regards to those statistics is are there more cases of abuse happening in IL because other states are just not reporting abuse any longer and children are invisible? Less reporting does not always equate to less abuse…
- Casual Observer - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 12:40 pm:
@Not Again Really and @Iris
Oh wow, I hope the Administration isn’t that shortsighted. Isn’t Paniack required by law to put out this report? Plus, it will look exactly like when Rauner got rid of the last Inspector General who who criticized his pick for DCFS director. The press will have a field day with JB if he tries to get rid of her.
That said, we should probably watch her nomination in the GA. If it gets pulled before she gets confirmed, it means the Administration leaned hard on the GA to do his dirty work
- Not Again Really - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 1:34 pm:
@Casual Observer:
Pritzker has had almost a year to put Paniak’s name before the senate for confirmation.
He hasn’t.
And in every statement from the governor’s office on any report from the Inspector General, not a single word of thanks or praise.
What’s that tell you?
- theCardinal - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 2:21 pm:
The number of deaths for those under DCFS care is an epidemic. Where is the outrage? These kids deserve better. We have handful of vapers die in Illinois and there is outrage and great gnashing of teeth. I don’t care who was or is the gov, director or caseworker when this is going on. Fix it ! The most vulnerable kids are dying because any number of things including incompetence. They deserve better. Fix It Now. OW you are spot on Governors Own.
- Fact Checker - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 2:23 pm:
@casualobserver -Crooked Rauner ousted the former Inspector General, Denise Kane, after she uncovered corruption by former Director George Sheldon. Rauner picked the current IG. https://will.illinois.edu/news/story/gov.-rauner-replaces-longtime-dcfs-watchdog
“The change in leadership comes after Kane published what will be her final annual report of DCFS, which included a biting critique of former Director George Sheldon’s leadership. Sheldon resigned last year under the cloud of a corruption investigation by Kane’s office into contracting and hiring.”
- Casual Observer - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 3:00 pm:
@Not Again Really
Yeah, I agree. I guess it was more wishful thinking on my part. I mean, getting rid of Paniack is not only morally wrong, but it will be a bad political move, too. JB will get eaten alive in the press, even if he tried to get rid of her quietly. He hasn’t pulled the trigger yet, so I’m holding on to a little hope that someone on his staff is telling him it’s a bad move.
@Fact Checker
Thank you, I knew it was something terrible like that. I’m surprised it was Rauner that picked Paniack. I thought she was a Dem. Not that it matters. She’s obviously not some stooge that would have gone easy his next director. From what I remember, didnt she immediately tell Walker what she needed to do after the Tribune and ProPublica release those stories on that Pysch Hosptal. If Walker had been smarter, she would have listened to and worked with Paniack.
- Fact Checker - Friday, Jan 10, 20 @ 4:12 pm:
@casual observer if we have a Gov that makes decisions based on fear of the media as you are implying then this State has way more problems than just DCFS.