Congratulations to Gail Vida Hamburg and the Tribune for shedding light where usually there is only heat (“Child vs. family,” WomaNews, Nov. 16).
While other newspapers have been content to only caricature efforts to keep families together by offering the equivalent of “welfare queen” horror stories, Ms. Hamburg has given readers exactly what she hopes the child-welfare system can give children: “nuance (and) thoughtfulness.”
In the years since the tragic death of Joseph Wallace, the foster-care population in Illinois has soared to the point where a child is more likely to be taken from parents and placed in foster care in Illinois than in any other state. But instead of making children safer, these efforts simply overwhelmed the system, stealing time, money and attention from children in real danger.
In the first two full fiscal years after Joseph died, child-abuse deaths in Illinois went up. They still haven’t fallen below where they were before the Wallace death. Those who believed they were putting “child protection” ahead of “family preservation” actually gave children neither.
Other states have safely and appropriately kept more children at home, had fewer children die and at the same time have done better at placing children in adoptive homes.
Perhaps stories like Ms. Hamburg’s will, at last, help Illinois in finding that needed new direction.
