Continuing coverage of last Sarturday’s meeting about the Department of Children and Family Services…
Union blockage of DCFS reform
Steve Reick told of his legislation “incentivise” the department to do better.
It did not get out of the Rules Committee.
Ness pointed out that DCFS employees get promotions “based on seniority.”
She observed that the department could “lose a good caseworker when made a supervisor.
“There’s this disconnect because it’s a union workforce.”
Priscilla Harper is moving to Virginia to be better able to visit with her daughter.
As the coordinator of the moving van was in the house, she learned the 34-year olf had been a foster child.
The young woman described the cruelty of being raised in the Illinois foster care system.
At times she was in tears as the memories were shared.
“In the insanity of this system, there is a child living through this,” she said.
Reick described a meeting with a AFMSCME union rep about requiring supervising personnel to circule back into casework periodically.
“You realize I’m trying to make your people’s job easier?” he asked.
“Can’t do that” was the union representative’s reply.
Ness pointed out the Department is “understaffed.”
“But also there are unrealistice expectations,” Reick added.
“You’re right Perscilla, kids have expiration dates.
“Unless you get a kid into a stable household by three or four years old…[bad things happen–Reick was more elegant, but I didn’t get his exact words].”
This brings us to a group of young women from Prairie Ridge High School who formed an organization called SAUCE.
Those are the intials of a suggestion from Harper for a name: Student Advocates for Underserved Students Everywhere.
One question they posed was the contradiction of advising those under 18 to leave those who abuse them and don’t return while DCFS forces children back to their abusing family.
“That’s no way to treat a child,” Reick said.
“Removing a child is a really big deal,” Ness added. “Children love their parents.”
Harper disagreed.
Being a child “does not mean [one] loves” one’s parents.
She quoted one foster child:
“I feel like a complete stranger when this person puts me to bed.”
The state “needs to separate abuse from neglect. Poverty needs to be separately considered.”
How about stark criticism of the losers Ness and Reick?
The decrepit sot, Steven ‘motor vehicle weaving’’ Reick, makes me sick to my stomach. The whorey Ness tops it off.
According to C.A.S.A. (Court Appointed Special Advocates) children consider their abusive or neglectful parents ‘the devil they know’.
According to C.A.S.A. they try to keep the natural offspring in the home at all costs because the chances of being abused or sexually abused by a not relative guardian go way up over leaving the kids in their natural parents’ home.