Lake County Gazette

Illinois is making steps toward meaningful reform to help children in the state's custody now that four pieces of legislation aimed at improving the agency responsible for caring for the kids have become law. 

State Rep. Chris Bos (R-Lake Zurich) sponsored all four bills bringing changes to the Department of Children and Family Services.

"Far too many kids in our state are being let down by the countless number of problems at DCFS," Bos said in a recent press release.

The release noted House Bill 5418 will make changes to the Foster Children's Bill of Rights to make sure children in state custody have routine meetings with child protection workers, are taught to understand inappropriate affection, and have access to transitional programs to help them succeed as adults. House Bill 4304 will give children the ability to meet with an investigator to talk about any concerns as they are moved out of a foster care placement. House Bill 5064 enhances the safety standards for transporting children who are in foster care. Lastly, Senate Bill 3130 allows children who age out of the system to reunite with previous foster families. 

"There is no single cure-all that will fix DCFS overnight, but through these bipartisan changes that are now law, we are taking some important steps in the right direction to improve support for our kids in state care," Bos, an adoptive parent himself, said in the release.

The changes come as DCFS Director Marc Smith now faces 11 contempt of court citations in 2022. 

The latest of Smith's citation centers around an 11-year-old girl who has been in state care for more than half her life and has been shuffled between an abusive foster home, emergency foster homes, psychiatric hospitals and shelters, a recent Capital News Illinois report said. Last month, the girl was in a hospital emergency room after becoming suicidal. She remained in the emergency room for four days, two days longer than the court order to move her to a psychiatric hospital. 

"We have a lot more work to do and I'm committed to staying in the fight for as long as it takes," Bos said in the release. "Our kids deserve nothing less."

Other citations given to Smith have centered around children who weren't properly placed, such as a 15-year-old girl who was bounced from shelters to psychiatric hospitals and a 15-year-old boy who was held in a psychiatric facility for months longer that was medically necessary. 

After Smith's eighth citation, CBS Chicago questioned Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL) about how many more it would take before changes were made. Pritzker responded by telling the reporter "you're ignoring all of the progress that's been made at DCFS."

Because the contempt citations against Smith are civil and not criminal, jail time is not likely to be imposed. Instead, the DCFS could be fined, but the fines would be paid by taxpayer dollars.

Smith was officially confirmed as the agency's director in June 2021 after serving as acting director for two years, his biography on the DCFS website said.