CRSA reports identify other issues that hinder families’ efforts to obtain state services for mentally ill or emotionally disturbed children, including a lack of services available in a geographic area, state agencies deflecting clients to other agencies, everchanging diagnostic criteria that require constant changes to services and programs, and the inability of schools to pay for appropriate educational plans for children with special needs.
Schornagel says the custody relinquishment problem is largely the result of changes made to DCFS in the 1990s because of a federal court order that required DCFS to put foster children into permanent homes within two years of entering the foster care system. He says “disrupting adoptions” will continue as long as there is such a short time frame for getting kids into permanent homes, combined with parents who “aren’t fully prepared and trained for the clinical kinds of challenges they’re going to face” when adopting.
Kendall Marlowe, spokesman for the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, says the majority of adoptions do not result in custody relinquishment. He notes that Illinois had nearly 52,000 children in its foster care system in 1997, but that number has been reduced to fewer than 17,000 currently, mainly due to increased efforts to place foster children into permanent adoptive homes. About 26,800 children in Illinois receive a monthly adoption subsidy from the state, which Marlowe says is probably the best available estimate of currently adopted kids in Illinois – excluding adoptions done through private agencies.
About 99 percent of adoptions remain stable after two years, with 95 percent remaining stable after five years, according to a DCFS report.
Speaking generally and not about any specific case, Marlowe says long-term residential treatment like that sought by the Buschs is usually reserved for only the most mentally ill children. DCFS received 75 requests for residential placements in 2009, he says, and only seven of those cases received approval from DCFS director Erwin McEwen.
Many of the problems exhibited by adopted kids are common to all kids, Marlowe notes.
“Adoptive families are not the only families that struggle when kids move into adolescence, and many of the behaviors we associate with mental health conditions are very common among adolescents, including issues of sexuality, identity and attachment,” Marlowe says. “It can be too easy at times to perceive an adolescent’s struggle with maturity to be indicative of mental health conditions. Often, even when elements of mental health conditions are present, the more effective solution is therapy and intervention which involves the entire family. … Families often don’t want to hear that the entire family needs to be a part of the solution.”
Addressing the charge of neglect that often follows a psychiatric lockout, Marlowe says DCFS procedures call for an automatic neglect charge after any lockout, but the charge is usually only upheld if “the family is not engaged in coming up with a solution” for the child to return.
Schornagel says the proactive solution to custody relinquishment would be better community-based support services like intensive therapy and counseling in a child’s own community. Community-based services keep children in a familiar environment – usually their own home – while costing the state less money than residential treatment and preempting many of the problems that lead to psychiatric lockouts.
While many state agencies are working to establish more community-based services, Schornagel says that process requires diverting money away from things like residential care, which deals with kids who are already in crisis.
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