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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