STATE OF CHILD WELFARE SERVICES
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON HUMAN
RESOURCES
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON WAYS AND MEANS
HOUSE
OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRD CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
JUNE 21, 1993
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
SERIAL 102-32
STATEMENT OF BENJAMIN S. WOLF, DIRECTOR, CHILDREN'S
AND
INSTITUTIONALIZED PERSONS' PROJECT, AMERICAN
CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF
ILLINOIS
Mr. WOLF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of
the sub-
committee. I think I can talk loud enough from this angle.
I would like to tell you this morning that the present is deeply
troubled for the 33,000 children in the custody of the State of Illi-
nois; but that the future will be brighter I am confident. The
present was aptly described by a court-appointed panel of experts
in
our litigation against the Department of Children and Family
Services,
to which Mr. Ryder already had referred. It is a system
that repeatedly
and consistently makes bad decisions about chil-
dren. Because of
overloaded, undertrained, and poorly supported
caseworkers, because of a
lack of accountability from top to bottom
in the past, because of an
absence of coherent assessments of what
children need when they come
into the foster care system, leaving
thousands to drift for years in
temporary placements and shelters
and widespread violations of the
Adoption Assistance and Child
Welfare Act, the Federal law that should
govern these decisions.
It is a system that denies foster parents
essential information
about children, so that they don't even know the
needs of children
when they come into their custody and are denied a
coherent role
in the planning process for those children. There is a
chronic lack
of essential services, from medical care to mental health
care to
substance abuse services for children and for families; and
perhaps
most importantly, a paralysis of decisionmaking, where the
agency,
for the past many years, both at the top levels, and I am not
talk-
ing about the current administration, I am talking about what led
us here --- at the top levels and at the caseworker levels, is unable
to make decisions about what children should have and where they
should be. Which means the worst of all possible results --- they drift
without decisions and spend years in temporary arrangements
when
they ought to have a permanent home.
Under the discipline of our
Federal consent decree, which re-
quires that changes be phased in by
July 1, I am confident that is
going to change, Mr. Chairman. The
caseloads are going to be re-
duced, as Mr. Ryder described, and the
training is going to be im-
proved. We are going to have better support
for foster parents.
There are going to be strict time limits on
assessing the needs of
children and making plans for what should happen
to those chil-
dren and oversight to make sure those plans are
implemented. The
department is required to develop all essential
services and place-
ments for children and provide what they need.
Perhaps most importantly, in the context of today's hearing, the
consent decree acknowledges that the best interest of the child is
preeminent. We believed ---and Mr. Ryder was instrumental in
those
negotiations --- at the time we negotiated it, 2 1/2 years ago,
that
Federal law and State law already were clear that the best in-
terest of
the child was preeminent. Nobody believes the Adoption
Assistance and
Child Welfare Act or our State Juvenile Court Act
requires leaving a
child in a dangerous home. So, the consent de-
40
cree
explicitly has language acknowledging that the best interest of
the
child is preeminent. As we also know, from the hearings this
committee
has done and from the variety of studies around the
country, for most
children, though not all, making efforts to keep
them with their parents
or reunite them with their parents, is in
their best interest. Where it
is not, of course, no one would support
it. As Mr. Liederman said, where
the home is dangerous, no one
would support it.
The reform
process required by the consent decree requires that
the system not
lurch this way and that depending on what scandal
happens to be in the
papers this week. It requires a thoughtful,
systemic approach, which
recognizes that every child in every fam-
ily is different, and that
Amanda Wallace, for example, a seriously
mentally ill mother, who
physically endangered her children, is not
typical of parents in this
system, and that every case has to be
handled differently. Where you can
preserve a family, you should.
That is the requirement of Federal law
and State law -- and provide
services to keep children with their
families, if that is possible.
But, where you can't, the consent decree
requires much faster and
more effective decisionmaking, to sever
parental ties and to find an
alternative permanent home for the child.
We believe that with thoughtful legislation of the kind that Mr.
Liederman discussed at this committee and the House has sup-
ported
and leadership from the executive branch and sometimes
the pressure of
litigation, we will see the day in Illinois and per-
haps in the country
when our most vulnerable citizens will receive
the care and services
they require --- when our child protection sys-
tem will respond to
every child's needs with the urgency and dedi-
cation now often simply
reserved for public scandals.
Thank you.
[The prepared
statement follows:]
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