DCFS says it shouldn't be held responsible for children who die under its watch, but its own inspector general wonders if these lives had to be … cut short

Chicago Reporter, The, June, 2004 by Sarah Karp

In the middle of the night, 12-year-old DeMario nudged the only adult in the apartment and told him that his baby sister, Chloe, wasn't breathing. But the man barely responded, suggesting that the baby was fine and the boy should go back to sleep.

The boy's mother was nowhere to be found. At 8:30 that night, she had told him she was going to the store for milk, but she had not returned, and would not until dawn. As he waited for her, the boy spent the night praying and rocking his lifeless 6-week-old sister.

The state system that is in place to protect children had already spent a year trying to get the boy's mother to stop using drugs and leaving her kids to fend for themselves for nights at a time. Caseworkers even warned her that the state would take custody of her children. But it would not be until May 19, 2003--five days after Chloe died--that the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services would reach in and ask a Cook County Juvenile Court Judge to remove the children, demanding that the boy's mother get help for her drug addiction to regain custody.

Every year, dozens of children die months after DCFS looks into their family lives. And the number of these deaths went up by almost 50 percent between the fiscal years 1999 and 2003, from 82 to 122, according to the annual report issued in January by DCFS Inspector General Denise Kane. The inspector general is mandated to review the deaths of all children who, within the past year, were in foster care or whose families had received services from DCFS or had been investigated by the agency. "Is it reasonable for us to inquire if it is possible to lower the mortality rates of these children?" Kane asks in the report. Then she answers her own question, concluding that it's not only reasonable, but also prudent.

Kane describes several cases in which obvious failures by investigators and social workers left children at home, where they were later killed by their parents or parents' partners. And she also notes several deaths attributed to accidents or natural causes that might have been prevented if workers had been more diligent. DCFS does not allow Kane to be interviewed, and officials wouldn't comment on specific cases.

Master Sgt. Richard Roderick, who is the head of the Illinois State Police's 6-year-old Child Homicide Task Force, is often disturbed by the number of children who die after DCFS has had prior opportunities to intervene. "It happens again and again and again," said Roderick, a member of a group of experts who review child deaths in Cook County. "Sometimes I just want to stop the [review] meeting and stand up and say, 'What is going on here?'"

DCFS Director Bryan Samuels, who was appointed in May 2003, wouldn't comment for this article. Other officials wouldn't acknowledge the increase in child deaths shown in Kane's reports. "Those are not our numbers," said Gailyn Thomas, DCFS deputy director of child protection. "I don't have any numbers of my own. Keeping count is not important to me."

"Our mandate is to keep kids safe. But just because a child dies I can't say we didn't meet our mandate," Thomas continued. "We have no control over certain circumstances of families, but we try to provide the appropriate services to ensure the safety of kids."

Still, Thomas and DCFS spokeswoman Jill Manuel said the department takes Kane's recommendations seriously. Samuels and a group of his deputy directors meet monthly with Kane to consider making changes based on Kane's findings. In response to some of Kane's recommendations, DCFS recently started to require child protection investigators to make sure homes are meeting safety standards such as having smoke detectors, Manuel said. "The [protocols] at the end of the day will probably save some lives," Manuel said. But she said DCFS is just one of many government agencies responsible for educating parents on ways to keep their chiddren out of harm's way.

Although Kane works closely with DCFS, her annual report is addressed to elected officials. The governor is required by law to get it, as are key Illinois House and Senate leaders. Yet the report mostly gets buried amidst other material in these politicians' files.

Rebecca Rausch, a spokeswoman for Gov. Rod Blagojevich, said the governor is aware of the report, but she couldn't say whether he'd read it before The Chicago Reporter made inquiries. "The governor thinks it is a tragedy every time a child dies," Rausch said. The governor continues to have confidence in Samuels, she added.

Other lawmakers, including Sen. Barack Obama and Rep. William Delgado, the Democratic chairmen of the Senate and House committees that handle child welfare legislation, said they hadn't read the report before the Reporter asked for their response to it. An additional group of 14 lawmakers who, according to DCFS, specifically requested the report said they could not comment until they had the chance to "dig it up" or "find it in the volumes of information they get," in the words of two members. Many of the lawmakers couldn't remember why or when they requested the report.