Kane County Reporter

State Rep. Dan Ugaste (R-St. Charles) has stern words for Gov. J.B. Pritzker concerning the problems at the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS).

“Our children cannot wait,” Ugaste said in a post to Facebook. “Governor Pritzker’s child welfare agency is failing to keep kids safe. The House Human Services Appropriations Committee held a hearing on these failures but so much more needs to be done, and quickly, to address the critical issues within the agency.”

During the recent three-and-a-half-hour hearing, lawmakers grilled DCFS staffers on the subject of children in the agency’s care that have been approved for placements still being locked away in psychiatric care.

DCFS Director Marc Smith was at the center of much of the questioning, which included inquiries about deaths of children who had been in contact with DCFS, and social workers, such as Deidre Silas, who were killed on the job.

While Smith assured committee members that the three children who had been the subject of contempt citations levied against him by Cook County Judge Patrick Murphy have now been placed, Cook County Public Guardian Charles Golbert said only one is in permanent placement.

According to CapitolNewsIllinois.com, the 9-year-old girl who spent seven months in a psychiatric hospital is in a temporary emergency placement, while the teenage boy who spent six-months in a temporary emergency placement is now in a foster home and the 17-year-old boy relegated to a psychiatric hospital is now in an integrated care facility and on a waiting list for a therapeutic treatment center.

DCFS officials are reported to be holding at least 53 children in psychiatric hospitals beyond medical necessity, with at least five of those children being held for more than six months. In written testimony, Golbert also told lawmakers his office had been raising concerns about inappropriate placement of DCFS wards for the last six years, with the situation now having reached crisis levels.

Golbert said since 2021 the same thing has happened to 350 children for an average of 55 days.

“In this spirit of humane concern, and also apparently in frustration with the growing number of children before each judge whom DCFS warehouses in inappropriate placements, the Juvenile Court in Cook County recently took the unprecedented step of creating a consolidated docket specifically to hear the cases of youth in care abandoned by DCFS in psychiatric hospitals, what are supposed to be ‘temporary’ shelters, and other inappropriate placements,” he wrote.

At a recent news conference, state Rep. Tom Weber (R-Lake Villa) said more than 1,120 children who had contact with DCFS over ten years have died.

“If that’s not a crisis, I don't know what is,” he said.

According to Illinois Court Appointed Special Advocates, as of 2019 there were more than 18,500 children in the care of DCFS.