every year the Department of Children and Family Services takes in 1.5 billion dollars of taxpayer money to keep the most vulnerable kids in Illinois safe but a new report shows just how often that fails to happen the newly released documents show us just how many kids with DCFS contact died over the last 18 months CBS 2's Chris Tye has covered the department for years with some of his reporting leading to Law changes he's live with what he's found tonight Chris Joe and Erica this is the office
tower that houses DCFS director Mark Smith it's the job of him and his 2 800 employees to keep kids safe but for the kids who lean on DCFS as a final safety net to stay alive more of them are falling through it than at any time in two decades these are the 11 faces and stories we've told over the last year kids who've died on DCFS radar from Foster Homes child welfare facilities killed in homes flagged as violent as it turns out these 11 are the tip of a much larger and chilling iceberg the DCFS
Inspector General released this report Wednesday showing the number wasn't 11. not even 111. it was 171 of the kids dying from abuse and neglect between July 21 and June of 2022 many died from natural causes but 18 were from homicides 30 from accidents and now we have a record number of dead kids worse than in decades Cook County public Guardian Charles Goldberg says it's one part Staffing shortage one part mismanagement leading to catastrophic results I can tell you're physically this this aff
ects you yeah it pisses me off these are kids these are our kids um these faces agency charged with taking care of them and they are failing miserably CBS 2 dug through 20 years of data never has the number of dead children risen this High a 40 jump over just last year the report also includes the case of eight-year-old Amaria Osby DCFS waited 60 days to make contact with her or her mom after a hotline call came in on her well-being she was later killed by her mother in their Uptown apartment th
e report indicates that's far from the worst of the wait times even though Department policy says in these cases good faith attempts must be made every 24 hours or sooner time frames of these delays range from just under a month to over 100 days before contact was made when this first is not seeing kids in a prompt way like they're required to when they learn of abuse and neglect it shouldn't be a big surprise that we have huge explosion of the number of kids who are dying while they're involved
with two so fast [Music] thank you Cook County public Guardian Charles Goldberg also points out kids aren't the only ones at risk DCFS workers are too two of those workers who are out in the field with families have been killed on the job in the last few years we reached out to DCFS today they did not have a comment on this report Governor pritzker has said he stands behind DCFS director Smith and we should point out this has been a department that has seen major dysfunction through Republican
and Democratic governorships live in the loop Chris Thai CBS 2 news and those numbers you brought us today about the child's deaths those are just shocking heartbreaking Chris thank you
Comments