Who would have imagined that a hole in the middle of a bed could have torn a hole so large that it nearly destroyed the last vestige of an American family. But when a young father concerned about his toddler's welfare turned to the Illinois child welfare system for help that's exactly what happened.
The mother's drug use continued even after her participation in seven treatment programs and the father had been unsuccessful at convincing her to not take their two year old son along when she purchased drugs. Leaving for work each morning, the father was apprehensive about the boy's well-being while in the sole care of the mother and after the mother burnt a hole in their bed while smoking, in 1991, the father called the Illinois Child Abuse Hotline requesting assistance for the mother.
When an investigator was dispatched to look into the matter, the father asked for assistance with child care, in an effort to alleviate the possibility of any harm to their son while he was at work. Upon completion of the investigation a private agency caseworker was assigned the case. The father's continued requests that treatment be provided for the mother fell on deaf ears, according to the father. Instead, the caseworker proceeded to remove the child from the parents' custody, citing their escalating arguments with each other. When two months later the mother gave birth to a second boy, he too was immediately placed into a foster home.
I became involved with this family in 1993, when I worked in the new IDCFS targeted case management (TCM) unit. The purpose of TCM was to monitor, advise and work with the private agencies in their handling of long-standing, obstinate foster placement cases with the goal of achieving a stable resolution.
During our first meeting, the parents said that the caseworkers had never tried to assist them, but instead were insistent in keeping their two children with their respective foster parents. The father was incredulous that it was he who had called the department requesting help and had not been the subject of any abuse or neglect report; but as a result of his outreach had ended up losing his boys. Moreover, though they had several relatives with whom the children could have been placed, each boy was placed separately in a nonrelative home, they said. The department's official goal for the boys' future, spelled out in the family's service plan, was long-term placement, the precursor to adoption.
The father was not alone in his incredulity. As I examined the particulars of the case things just did not add up. The children were on their way toward adoption. But why? The neglect allegations, brought to the department's attention by the father, involved only the mother. The father, who had moved into another apartment without the mother, was adamant about wanting the boys returned to him and I saw no reason why that should not have happened. The father, who was employed as a machinist, had a good and stable work history. But even if there had been some issues precluding the immediate return of the children to the father's custody, there certainly was nothing in his background to warrant adoption.
The forum at which foster children's placement goal received the department's stamp of approval, which then determined the official route in which the case was to proceed during the next six months, was the administrative case review. I believed that reversing the goal of long-term placement and changing it to return home was warranted and I therefore spoke with the state-wide case review administrator, after which a new case review was scheduled.
I also found a private attorney for the father, who would have more time to devote to his situation than would the routinely appointed public defender.
The state-wide administrator herself presided over the new case review, which was attended by family members, the caseworker who had led the case down the adoption road and the case reviewer who had authorized the original plan. During the unusually long review, in which an in-depth examination of the facts took place, the father pounded the table saying that he wanted his kids back. This was evidence that the father was prone to violence and could not be trusted with his children, said the caseworker and the original reviewer, in their attempt to justify their puzzling decision to steer the case toward adoption. The year was 1993, and little did the father know that even after the placement goal was reversed at this review to return home, an increasing number of child welfare players were to hound him for the next seven years, in the absence of any evidence, of having violent tendencies.
By now the mother, the subject of the maltreatment report, had died. The private agency and some others continued in their attempts to portray the father as a violent drunk, contrary to any evidence. When a domestic violence assessment revealed no evidence of violence, the father was forced to undergo another such evaluation, which yielded the same results, and then yet again, another evaluation. Still nothing. The father was forced to submit to so many alcohol assessments, all indicating that he had no drinking problem, that he alone could have kept an evaluator in business.
Throughout this ordeal the father was steadfast in his determination that his sons be returned to his custody. And, it paid off--in part. The older boy's foster parents did not fight to keep him and he was returned to the father. But the father was up against a wholly different situation with the younger boy's foster parents. They were a wealthy childless couple living in a large suburban home. The child, who was born two months after the older brother's removal from the parents' custody, was placed with them immediately after his birth. These foster parents fought with all their might and money to keep him. To do so, they had to continue the pretense that the father was a violent alcoholic who was unfit to parent. And that they did.
It became more difficult to continue to portray the father this way since he now was raising his older son and doing so quite well. Three independent psychiatrists who reviewed the case said that the younger son was "bonded" to both the foster mother and to the (biological) father. The former state-wide case review administrator, now the deputy director in charge of the department's clinical services division, testified during a Juvenile Court hearing that this was not a child welfare case because the father had never abused or neglected his children. Further, she testified, "The father's behavior with the younger boy was exemplary." This was a custody case, and, one of the worst at that, she said, and it was therefore her recommendation that joint custody be awarded to the father and foster parents.
Neither joint nor sole custody was awarded to the father. In spring 2000, the court awarded guardianship of the younger son to the foster parents. The father told me in 2004 that since that ruling there had been a two year period during which he saw the younger son only twice. According to the father, after the younger son, then 13, demanded to see him and said that he wanted to live with the father and brother, they saw each other about once a month. The father said that the 13 year old had serious behavioral problems at the foster home and at school which led to several psychiatric hospitalizations. The older son, 15 at the time, who had been living with the father, was well adjusted and did well in school, the father told me.
The particulars of what happened to this family offer some insight into what can and often does occur when competence and ethical standards are missing in child welfare work. We will discuss this in more detail in the next blog article.
The mother's drug use continued even after her participation in seven treatment programs and the father had been unsuccessful at convincing her to not take their two year old son along when she purchased drugs. Leaving for work each morning, the father was apprehensive about the boy's well-being while in the sole care of the mother and after the mother burnt a hole in their bed while smoking, in 1991, the father called the Illinois Child Abuse Hotline requesting assistance for the mother.
When an investigator was dispatched to look into the matter, the father asked for assistance with child care, in an effort to alleviate the possibility of any harm to their son while he was at work. Upon completion of the investigation a private agency caseworker was assigned the case. The father's continued requests that treatment be provided for the mother fell on deaf ears, according to the father. Instead, the caseworker proceeded to remove the child from the parents' custody, citing their escalating arguments with each other. When two months later the mother gave birth to a second boy, he too was immediately placed into a foster home.
I became involved with this family in 1993, when I worked in the new IDCFS targeted case management (TCM) unit. The purpose of TCM was to monitor, advise and work with the private agencies in their handling of long-standing, obstinate foster placement cases with the goal of achieving a stable resolution.
During our first meeting, the parents said that the caseworkers had never tried to assist them, but instead were insistent in keeping their two children with their respective foster parents. The father was incredulous that it was he who had called the department requesting help and had not been the subject of any abuse or neglect report; but as a result of his outreach had ended up losing his boys. Moreover, though they had several relatives with whom the children could have been placed, each boy was placed separately in a nonrelative home, they said. The department's official goal for the boys' future, spelled out in the family's service plan, was long-term placement, the precursor to adoption.
The father was not alone in his incredulity. As I examined the particulars of the case things just did not add up. The children were on their way toward adoption. But why? The neglect allegations, brought to the department's attention by the father, involved only the mother. The father, who had moved into another apartment without the mother, was adamant about wanting the boys returned to him and I saw no reason why that should not have happened. The father, who was employed as a machinist, had a good and stable work history. But even if there had been some issues precluding the immediate return of the children to the father's custody, there certainly was nothing in his background to warrant adoption.
The forum at which foster children's placement goal received the department's stamp of approval, which then determined the official route in which the case was to proceed during the next six months, was the administrative case review. I believed that reversing the goal of long-term placement and changing it to return home was warranted and I therefore spoke with the state-wide case review administrator, after which a new case review was scheduled.
I also found a private attorney for the father, who would have more time to devote to his situation than would the routinely appointed public defender.
The state-wide administrator herself presided over the new case review, which was attended by family members, the caseworker who had led the case down the adoption road and the case reviewer who had authorized the original plan. During the unusually long review, in which an in-depth examination of the facts took place, the father pounded the table saying that he wanted his kids back. This was evidence that the father was prone to violence and could not be trusted with his children, said the caseworker and the original reviewer, in their attempt to justify their puzzling decision to steer the case toward adoption. The year was 1993, and little did the father know that even after the placement goal was reversed at this review to return home, an increasing number of child welfare players were to hound him for the next seven years, in the absence of any evidence, of having violent tendencies.
By now the mother, the subject of the maltreatment report, had died. The private agency and some others continued in their attempts to portray the father as a violent drunk, contrary to any evidence. When a domestic violence assessment revealed no evidence of violence, the father was forced to undergo another such evaluation, which yielded the same results, and then yet again, another evaluation. Still nothing. The father was forced to submit to so many alcohol assessments, all indicating that he had no drinking problem, that he alone could have kept an evaluator in business.
Throughout this ordeal the father was steadfast in his determination that his sons be returned to his custody. And, it paid off--in part. The older boy's foster parents did not fight to keep him and he was returned to the father. But the father was up against a wholly different situation with the younger boy's foster parents. They were a wealthy childless couple living in a large suburban home. The child, who was born two months after the older brother's removal from the parents' custody, was placed with them immediately after his birth. These foster parents fought with all their might and money to keep him. To do so, they had to continue the pretense that the father was a violent alcoholic who was unfit to parent. And that they did.
It became more difficult to continue to portray the father this way since he now was raising his older son and doing so quite well. Three independent psychiatrists who reviewed the case said that the younger son was "bonded" to both the foster mother and to the (biological) father. The former state-wide case review administrator, now the deputy director in charge of the department's clinical services division, testified during a Juvenile Court hearing that this was not a child welfare case because the father had never abused or neglected his children. Further, she testified, "The father's behavior with the younger boy was exemplary." This was a custody case, and, one of the worst at that, she said, and it was therefore her recommendation that joint custody be awarded to the father and foster parents.
Neither joint nor sole custody was awarded to the father. In spring 2000, the court awarded guardianship of the younger son to the foster parents. The father told me in 2004 that since that ruling there had been a two year period during which he saw the younger son only twice. According to the father, after the younger son, then 13, demanded to see him and said that he wanted to live with the father and brother, they saw each other about once a month. The father said that the 13 year old had serious behavioral problems at the foster home and at school which led to several psychiatric hospitalizations. The older son, 15 at the time, who had been living with the father, was well adjusted and did well in school, the father told me.
The particulars of what happened to this family offer some insight into what can and often does occur when competence and ethical standards are missing in child welfare work. We will discuss this in more detail in the next blog article.