PEORIA -- A black child in Peoria has a much greater chance of being caught up in the state child welfare system than does a white child.
African American children make up around 25 percent of the child population in Peoria County but around 60 percent of the children taken from their families by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, according to recent figures released by the agency after a Freedom of Information request.
These documents from the DCFS show African American children make up 59 percent of children in foster care, 66 percent of children in the care of relatives and 52 percent of those institutionalized or in group homes.
Both African American and white children spend an average time of more than two years in DCFS care before they are reunited with their families or placed for adoption.
For Hispanic children the time is double that, at more than four years, the data shows. But they are a very small percentage of the Peoria DCFS case load, so the statistics may be skewed by one or two extraordinary cases.
Crystal Clark of Peoria has spoken out against the DCFS system. Her African American grandchildren were taken away from her home where they were living with her and their mother, and placed in a series of white foster homes. She says they were abused in some of these homes and also estranged from their religion and culture.
The children were never abused in Clark's home. Instead Clark got into a dispute with a caseworker, who then took the children away from her. The mother had been sent to prison for theft.
For several years Clark has filed complaints, picketed, and even embarked on a brief hunger strike hoping to spark interest in her case and in the way the system operates.
She would like to see a federal mediator from the U.S. Justice Department come to Peoria to meet with officials and representatives of the African American community, to discuss the ongoing problems.
Taxpayers also should be interested in cutting back some of these numbers, especially in situations where a relative is capable and willing to care for the children.
The system in Peoria and Tazewell Counties costs an estimated $25 million yearly to operate, the Peoria Journal Star reported in 2005, based on research I did then.
An average of 300 children from the two counties are taken into the DCFS system each year, the figures show. But a majority of these children are not beaten or abused. More than half typically are deemed to be at risk of being harmed, perhaps because of domestic violence in the home. Others have parents in jail.
Ninety percent of the families caught up in the DCFS system are said to be low income.
-- Elaine Hopkins
Comments