Having succeeded in moving nearly 50,000 children over the last decade out of foster care and into permanent homes, Illinois child welfare officials are bracing for a new challenge: keeping them there.
A small but growing number of former state wards have returned to the system as they encounter the problems of the teenage years — strains compounded by emotional and psychological scars they carry from childhood.
Roughly 8 percent of children who were adopted a decade ago returned at one time to the custody of the Department of Children and Family Services, according to a 2006 study by researchers at the University of Illinois.
Making the adoptive families more vulnerable to disruption is the fact that many caregivers — some of whom are grandparents or older relatives — are in their 60s or older.
DCFS has offered services to adoptive families in crisis. But in an effort to get ahead of problems, and avoid a rush of children back into foster care, it is now offering adoptive families and guardians a range of services, from respite care to orthodontia to drug treatment and counseling.
The hope, said first-year acting DCFS director Erwin McEwen, is that these families will be more likely to overcome problems and stay together.
“The next biggest challenge that is pressing child welfare is: How do you look at maintaining those populations so kids don’t come back into the system and have families to grow up with?” McEwen said. “We have reduced the number of kids in care, but we haven’t reduced the number of kids we care for.”
Mark Testa, director of the Children and Family Research Center at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said Illinois has been a leader in adoptions and guardianships. DCFS, which had custody of more than 51,000 children in 1997, now has just 15,776 children.
Now, he said, the state is taking the novel step of caring for kids who have left the system.
“Illinois is now at the leading edge of an enormous change in child welfare that is sweeping the nation,” Testa said.
Over the last decade, 49,000 children have moved out of foster care and into permanent homes. Today, 9,000 of those have turned 18 or older, and their families are no longer getting state subsidies.
Of the 40,000 youths that remain, Testa’s research indicates that roughly 6,400 children in those families, or 16 percent, may need additional support from DCFS.
The agency is beginning by targeting families with 13-year-olds and 16-year-olds. The greatest unmet needs among these families, according to the 2006 University of Illinois study, were substance abuse treatment, educational advocacy and respite care.
As the number of adoptive parents and guardians grows, their average age is rising. In 1999, about 14 percent of caregivers were 60 or older. Today, nearly a quarter are that old, 9,138 out of a total of 40,620.
Officials said the age of the parents plays out in a number of ways. Some of it is as simple as physical size and strength: Older parents who have to care for children with disabilities can find themselves lifting much greater weights even as they become less robust. Sometimes it is a matter of energy or faltering health.
Another concern is that these aging caregivers will die, leaving their child behind. And so they are also being encouraged to make other plans for that child to prevent him or her from returning to foster care.
“If we know the probability is out there that these families could be struggling, we shouldn’t wait to get a call,” McEwen said. “We asked these families to take care of these children, and we need to be with these families as they enter the most difficult child-rearing years.”
Under the plan, social workers will visit adoptive and guardian families rather than corresponding by mail.
In addition to contracting with a handful of private agencies, DCFS has allocated 15 new staff positions to help respond to requests for help, as well as adding services. To fund the effort, the department is combining $2 million in new money from the state with $4 million it is reallocating from funds once used to help kids in foster care.
Child welfare officials were elated to hear that DCFS will be reaching out to these families.
“It’s wonderful,” said Cook County Public Guardian Robert Harris. “If they get there soon enough to work with the family and intervene, they might keep some of these cases from blowing up.”
Benjamin Wolf, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said the change is overdue.
“Many more children are in adoptive homes or permanent guardianship than in foster care, so it’s important to look at their needs,” Wolf said. “We are hopeful that with the right services we can keep those families stable.”
DCFS support is a relief for families who have taken in former foster youths. Cleve Benson, 75, of the Englewood neighborhood, took in his grandson as a child. Now Emmanuel Davis, who has cerebral palsy, is 16.
As Benson began to struggle with the physical demands of the role, Davis’ aunt and uncle, Delaina and Anthony Benson, stepped in to help. Though they are in their 30s, the younger Bensons faced difficulties too.
They carried their nephew up the front steps. They lifted him into the car and tub. They worried he would roll out of his bed at night.
Anthony Benson stopped working to care for Davis, and the family got help from state and federal subsidies.
Then the Benson family got a call from a caseworker, who said she would try to help.
“It’s like heavy bricks have been lifted off my shoulders,” said Delaina Benson, who works for Chicago Public Schools. “If they actually do follow through and get Emmanuel help, it will be beautiful.”Monique Oliphant and Korey Scott, both 24, who live on the West Side of Chicago, recently took guardianship of Scott’s two teenage sisters and arranged for counseling through DCFS.
“A lot of times kids can’t open up to you as their parents. It helps to have another person around,” Oliphant said.
Carol Johnson, a 49-year-old chauffeur who lives on the South Side, became guardian of two nieces and a nephew in the late 1990s. She did it to help her sister.
Johnson wiped out her savings account buying beds, storage containers and clothing. Looking back, Johnson said she could have used more help.
“I’m not going to say it was an easy task. We kept things going,” Johnson said. “It’s stressful when you’ve got more than one child and all of them need something. And this is the amazing part — it’s only by the grace of God that we made it.”
Mary Anne Brown, executive director of Hephzibah Children’s Association in Oak Park, hopes more DCFS support would encourage parents to adopt special-needs children.
“We know all this early trauma is going to have an effect. You don’t know when it’s going to come, but you want someone to support you,” she said.
Nancy Ronquillo, president of Children’s Home + Aid, an agency doing these DCFS programs, said they represent the next phase for the Illinois child welfare system, which has had success finding permanent homes for foster children.
“This represents a strong effort to move forward and rethink how we can better respond to kids and families, particularly those who have come through the system and are at risk of coming back,” Ronquillo said. “We are doing some trailblazing here.”
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ocasillas@tribune.com
