The head of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services said changes in practices to allow on-the-spot hiring have allowed the agency to make big gains in reducing chronic staff shortages this year.
DCFS held such an event in Bloomington last year. Director Heidi Mueller is celebrating a headcount of 3,815 people at the agency in charge of troubled children and parents. She took the helm at DCFS about 10 months ago.
Staff shortages have been a perennial challenge. A lack of front line workers makes it hard to cover all required home visits. When DCFS can’t do that, when there's not enough regular contact to know what's happening in homes, bad things can happen to children.
“We now have the highest staffing level that we've had in more than 15 years,” Mueller said on WGLT's Sound Ideas. “We are probably going to exceed our head count before the end of this fiscal year, which is something that many, many state agencies around the country are salivating at.”
The progress is made possible by a budget of about $2 billion, up more than $800 million in the last five years.
"Our caseloads have really improved in investigations and permanency," said Mueller. "Those are areas we have made huge headway in all our hiring. We probably will still need to hire a few more folks in our hotline. We could use a few more licensing folks."
Mueller said the department now finds permanent placements for about 28% of abused and neglected children removed from their homes within a year.
“Even since coming on board this year, in 2024 we have had a higher percentage and more kids who have achieved permanent, stable homes than we've had any year for at least the past eight years,” said Mueller.
That 28% placement rate is up from 15% recorded in 2022-2023, but still significantly below the national average of 43%.
"That is a big improvement in one year. And I think you continue to move the needle bit by bit, year by year. It is not something that you can flip a switch," said Mueller.
Outside advocates for children note rapid permanent placement is important because kids experience fresh dislocation trauma each time the state moves them.
Mueller said finding those placements is complicated by deep depletion of the foster parent base that began in the budget standoff during the administration of former Gov. Bruce Rauner, and worsened during the pandemic.
Only now is the population of foster parents starting to recover, she said, adding the state also has begun emphasizing kinship caregivers — family and extended families who can act as permanent foster parents.
“The more we can do up front to identify family and folks who come from the communities our kids come from, who have known and loved them already, the more stable placements can be,” said Mueller.
Until recently, kinship caregivers did not receive reimbursement from the state comparable to traditional foster parents, creating financial challenges for many potential foster placements with relatives. Mueller said the state has equalized that payment rate and will benefit from federal action as well.
“The KIND Act which just passed the Senate unanimously will allow the state of Illinois to claim federal reimbursement for subsidized guardianship, which will essentially put our family guardians on the equal playing field in terms of reimbursement in terms of rates as traditional foster care,” said Mueller.
Intensive programs
Mueller sees promising results from a pilot program of therapeutic foster care run by Lutheran Social Services. It offers intensive services to children in foster care. She said she would like to scale up that kind of offering with more providers, more therapeutic treatment, and in more foster homes across the state.
She said Dr. Dana Weiner, who is leading the Children's Behavioral Health Transformation Initiative in Illinois, geo-maps and uses data analytics to find areas where more resources are needed.
“Very clearly, there's a need for specialized treatment for kids on the autism spectrum. The number of kids who have come into DCFS care who are on the autism spectrum has really skyrocketed ... recently. We're really still trying to figure out what is driving that increase, but that's a specific need that we're seeing. We need to develop both community-based support and resources for families for those kids. We also need to develop specialized residential treatment for those kids,” said Mueller.
She anticipated opening 150 new residential program slots within the next year for kids on the autism spectrum, who have developmental delays, who are LGBTQ+ and need affirming care, and kids who have experienced trafficking.
“We really want to build a continuum of care in the community that allows kids to stay in homes, whether those are family homes or foster homes, so that they don't have to escalate to residential care or the hospital,” said Mueller.
McLean County family treatment court
The state has just under 19,000 children in care; 65% remain in their family homes. For the new year, Mueller said a core goal is to take a look at better supporting families early — before they get pulled into the system of abuse and neglect procedures.
“We know when we have to remove kids from families, when we entangle people in the system, the outcomes aren't good, and the more we can do up front to support families, like they do in McLean County at the family recovery court. Those are the kind of things that really make a difference, keep families together and help kids have better outcomes,” said Mueller.
Mueller is referring a startup family treatment court program, an effort begun at the county level, and the first of its kind in Illinois.
"It was really in line with all the research we know about what works for people in terms of recovery," she said. "I'm sold. I am totally sold on this approach. I think it's going to be successful."
And, it should be portable to other jurisdictions.
"This is an ideal location because it's small enough to try something new, but large enough to have an impact and so I think probably you would start with other similar-sized communities, but I see this as something that could be really successful throughout the state," said Mueller.
McLean County Chief Circuit Judge Casey Costigan said DCFS will participate in offering its wraparound services to participants in the court, which are similar to programs the court requires.
Family treatment court is just under way and there are no performance data yet on the initiative that seeks to remove barriers to people's success so they can get their kids back.
Rica Rountree
When a child dies from abuse, it often turns out a lot of people knew there were problems.
In one instance in Bloomington-Normal about five years ago, a young girl named Rica Rountree was kicked to death by her father’s girlfriend. Multiple reporters over time had signaled there were issues. The autopsy showed the 8-year-old had 67 scars Yet there was no department substantiated indication of abuse until it was too late for Rica.
WGLT asked Mueller how the state agency is better now at addressing system gaps than when Rica died.
“Those extreme cases … are difficult for me to wrap my head around … as a parent, as a mom," she said. "What is important to point out is that those kinds of cases where we see extreme abuse are a very small minority of what we actually see every day. And I think we become dominated by those … and I think it's a mistake for us to make our policies based on those cases. We have to keep our heads focused on what it is that we're trying to do day after day.”
Most cases DCFS sees are neglect cases. There is a wide range of severity within that category. She said the state must refine its approach to focus resources efficiently. Her example is the ongoing implantation of the SAFE model, a structured decision-making tool for caseworkers to gather robust information up front. More than 20 jurisdictions across the country use the model, said Mueller.
“They can make sure that they are not pulling in cases to the system that don't need to be pulled in, but instead focusing our efforts on those cases where there's a really significant risk," she said. "What happens when you just react is you tend to overdo the approach for all cases, and … spread your resources too thin."
It’s slow going. The state began implementing SAFE in July of 2022, according to a department spokesperson, and is 25% complete. It is being folded into a broader technology update called IllinoisConnect and DCFS estimated SAFE will be fully implemented three years after IllinoisConnect is fully functional.
DCFS has enjoyed significant support from Gov. JB Pritzker, nearly doubling its budget during his tenure. The financial picture to assist the agency in continuing to improve its services is cloudy. The change in the federal administration could impact federal dollars that flow to Illinois. And, state lawmakers will grapple with a $3.2 billion projected budget deficit this spring.
Mueller said DCFS is planning for a maintenance budget next year. Meanwhile, the work goes on.
“There's a lot of change that needs to happen all around to get to where we want to be,” she said.
