The new director of Illinois’ child welfare agency wants a better system for tracking children who die from abuse or neglect.
Bobbie Gregg’s listing her priorities as the new director of Illinois’ Department of Children and Family Services.
She talked to WBEZ and to the Chicago Sun-Times editorial board about children who died from abuse or neglect - even after DCFS investigated the families.
The two news organizations partnered last year - and found deaths like those were on the rise.
Now Gregg says - top managers will be reviewing child deaths monthly to look at the circumstances of the death. They’ll be meeting with other states to see how they track this kind of data.
"We’re going to use that process, one, to make sure that we have adequate managerial oversight and hopefully, begin to identify trends earlier if there are in fact trends to identify," Gregg said.
Gregg says the private sector tracks data and analyzes trends better than the social sector - and she’d like DCFS to improve in those areas.
