More than 80 Chicagoans who want to be foster parents were fingerprinted this week in an experimental program designed to speed one of the most time-consuming parts of the foster parent process.
Many of the people fingerprinted at the Association House of Chicago on the West Side had been told they would have to wait two months before the state could take their fingerprints.
Eugene Rucker of the South Side sat waiting while his fiance, Charlene Gardner, was fingerprinted in a large room at Association House, an organization that prepares adults for licensing. Rucker and Gardner want to become official foster parents for Gardner’s three grandsons: Jamal, 8 months, Jerome, 1, and Maurice, 2.
The boys were placed in Gardner’s care earlier by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services while a child-abuse case against the children’s father is pending.
Gardner said she wants legal custody of the children while her daughter, Freda, 21, looks for an apartment and a job. Gardner said she felt her daughter needed time away from the responsibility of raising children to pursue an education and get her life on track.
Gardner’s daughter had given two of the children to their father to care for. But when the youngest suffered a fractured skull, DCFS stepped in and sent the children to Gardner in August, she said.
“I’ll take care of the kids until she can do better,” Gardner said. “Before they came, I used to complain about how bored I was. I don’t do that anymore.”
It will take about four to six weeks for officials to complete a criminal check of the fingerprints taken this week. Even so, officials who had been waiting just to schedule fingerprinting were hopeful.
“This is an experiment,” said Yvette Velez, supervisor for licensing at Association House, 2150 W. North Ave. “Call me up in four to six weeks and if I have licensed foster parents, it worked.”
DCFS spokeswoman Deborah Folga said the agency is committed to reducing the backlog of prospective foster parents who need to be fingerprinted.
Before getting fingerprinted, the prospective foster parents completed a parenting course. Once their prints have cleared and the parents are licensed, children can be placed with them immediately, authorities said.
Heriberto and Ramona Areizaga of the West Side have a specific child in mind they want to become foster parents for. Ramona Areizaga saw a 7-month-old girl at a North Side hospital and learned the baby is going to be taken from her mother because the mother is addicted to drugs, she said.
Ramona Areizaga said she spoke with the mother, who visits her daughter daily, and she agreed she would rather the Areizagas care for her daughter than a stranger. The Areizagas have raised nine children and care for their two grandchildren.
The Areizagas and the girl’s mother both want the girl’s mother to regain custody of her daughter when she can, Heriberto Areizaga said.
“We want to help both of them,” he said.
Tamara McClatchey, a licensing specialist for Association House, said foster placement lengths can vary from an emergency overnight placement to eight years. She said the average time children spend with foster parents is from six to 18 months.
“The goal is to get them out and get them back with their families within 18 months,” McClatchey said. “Because many parents have been drug dependent for many years, many parents are not going to be rehabilitated within that 18-month period.”
