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(also known as B.H. v. McDonald, B.H. v. Suter, B.H. v. Johnson and B.H. v. Ryder)
FILE NO., COURT, AND DATE FILED
88 C 5599 (N.D. Ill., June 9, 1988)
CITATIONS
715 F. Supp. 1387 (N.D. Ill. 1989), 128 F.R.D. 659 (N.D. Ill. Dec. 19, 1989); 715 F. Supp. 1387 (N.D. Ill. May 30, l989), 984 F. 2d 196 (7th Cir. 1993), 49 F.3d 294 (7th Cir. 1995), reh’g and reh’g en banc denied, (Apr. 7, 1995)
CLEARINGHOUSE REVIEW NO.
None
ATTORNEYS FOR PLAINTIFFS
Heidi S. Dalenberg
Schiff, Hardin & Waite
1660 Sears Tower
Chicago, IL 60606
(312) 258-5500
Fax: (312) 258-5700
hdalenberg(at)schiffhardin.com
Benjamin Wolf
Sarah Schreiber
The Roger Baldwin Foundation of ACLU
180 N. Michigan Avenue
Chicago, IL 60601
(312) 201-9740
Fax: (312) 288-5225
bwolf(at)aclu-il.org
ISSUES
This civil rights class action suit was brought on behalf of all children who are or will be in the custody of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS). The complaint charged DCFS with failure to provide services to the children in its care, and with violations of the Constitution and Title IV-E of the Social Security Act.
HISTORY AND STATUS
On May 30, 1989, the court granted in part and denied in part a motion to dismiss concerning a number of constitutional and statutory claims. The court held that Title IV-E did not create a privately enforceable right to preventive services. Plaintiffs filed an amended complaint in October 1989.
The parties negotiated a consent decree, which the court approved on December 20, 1991. The decree required extensive reform of Illinois’s child welfare agency over two and one half years. A monitor was appointed to oversee the settlement.
In August 1992, defendants submitted the required implementation plans. In response to plaintiffs’ and the monitor’s objections, defendants submitted several revisions and additions, including provisions for seeking supplemental appropriations of funds.
Over the next two years, the monitor issued year-end reports on defendants’ progress (to which each party responded), and defendants issued their annual plan, outlining their progress in complying with the consent decree and describing their plans for the next year (to which plaintiffs and the monitor filed objections and comments). In the meantime, Illinois’s legislature, largely in response to the reforms required by the consent decree, approved large increases in the agency’s budget.
As of June 1994, the date by which defendants were to have achieved full compliance, defendants were still out of compliance with a majority of the key reforms required by the decree. In response to demands by plaintiffs, and partly due to the appointment of a new agency director, defendants acknowledged serious managerial and structural barriers to achieving compliance, and retained national child welfare and public-sector reform experts to work with them to remove these obstacles.
After lengthy negotiations supervised by national child welfare consultants, the parties agreed on a series of new strategies to achieve compliance. First, the parties agreed on a set of outcomes as the focus of compliance efforts. Second, the parties agreed that the state would replace some of the functions of the court-appointed monitor with a Research Center at the University of Illinois. The Center was responsible for providing regular reports on defendants’ progress in improving outcomes for the plaintiff class and making recommendations regarding appropriate actions to ensure further progress. As a result, the court concluded that an appointed monitor was no longer necessary. Finally, defendants articulated a group of strategies designed to address many of the most serious non-compliance issues.
Reports revealed that the total number of children under DCFS care had dropped from more than 50,000 in 1997 to fewer than 40,000 in 1999. More children were adopted out of the system in fiscal year 1998 than in fiscal years 1991 through 1994 combined, and the number of children either adopted or placed in guardianships with family members in 1999 alone was nearly 8,500.
On July 5, 2001, the court indicated that it was satisfied that DCFS had achieved substantial compliance with the decree. However, due to plaintiffs’ ongoing concerns about the system (including inadequate case workers, agencies, foster placements, and mental health services), on February 20, 2003, the court approved the parties’ joint modification of the consent decree. On April 21, 2004, the court ordered plaintiffs to prepare an additional modification of the consent decree.
On September 9, 2005, the court held a status conference at the parties’ request. The court received reports of progress, as well as some continuing problems regarding the well-being of children in the system. Two primary areas of continuing concern were foster children’s educational outcomes and access to mental health services.
As part of Illinois’s budget crisis in 2009, the legislature proposed significant cuts in funding for DCFS’s services. As a result, DCFS planned to take actions that would violate the consent decree. Plaintiffs quickly filed an emergency motion to enforce the consent decree and block DCFS from cancelling or reducing the availability of mandated services. On June 30, 2009, the court ordered defendants to continue complying with the original consent decree, regardless of funding cuts. The order also required DCFS to submit any proposals for a reduction in DCFS’s services, programs, or staff to plaintiffs for review at least 14 days before such changes would take effect. If the changes violate the consent decree, plaintiffs have the ability submit the issue to the court.
While there have been many improvements in the system, placement instability remains an on-going difficulty for many foster children, resulting in multiple moves between various foster homes and residential programs. At the request of plaintiffs’ counsel, the University of Illinois Chicago Children and Family Research Center studied this problem and issued a report identifying the causes of moves between placements and offering a number of possible solutions. Plaintiffs have been negotiating with DCFS to develop an enforceable plan to improve placement instability.
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