DCFS Failures Opening Wounds in McHenry County
Crystal Lake Police officer Kimberley Shipbaugh testifies during at trial for the former Illinois Department of Children and Family Services employees Carlos Acosta and Andrew Polovin Monday. Shipbaugh removed AJ Freund from his mother’s care four months before he was eventually murdered by his parents. Acosta and Polovin signed off on returning the boy to his mother’s care. (Photo: Shaw Media)
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OPINION
Crystal Lake Police officer Kimberley Shipbaugh was on the stand in McHenry County Court Monday when she broke into tears.
Responding to a call involving JoAnn Cunningham, Shipbaugh was the first police officer to demand five-year-old AJ Freund and his younger brother be removed from Cunningham’s home filled with feces and ripped floors, fears of a heroin relapse, and signs of abuse on the boy.
Later that day, Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) caseworker Carlos Acosta allowed Cunningham to leave police custody with the children.
Four months later, AJ was dead.
Shipbaugh must feel a level of guilt for being unable to get the boy out of the home before it was too late, but Monday’s trial placed the blame squarely on Acosta and his then-DCFS counterpart Andrew Polovin. The two men are charged with endangering the life of a child and reckless conduct for their handling of the case.
Cameras are allowed in the courtroom for the trial and I watched much of the first day of the trial Monday. It reopened many angry emotions knowing the state failed this little boy and a fear for how many other boys like AJ Freund could meet the same fate.
DCFS is an overwrought, bloated, over-complicated, overly bureaucratic organization that appears to have lost its focus. Caseworkers are overworked and underpaid, yes, and the General Assembly has thrown tens of millions of dollars at the problem in recent years. What do they have to show for it?
Governor Pritzker and DCFS needs to treat this trial and the examination in public of their failures as a “Come to Jesus” moment and a public demand for real reform in the organization.
A DCFS spokesperson didn’t comment on the trial Monday, but outlined changes that had been made to the organization since the Freund case.
We are grateful to the many partners who assisted us with reviewing this case and implementing recommendations for improving the child welfare system in Illinois. Since AJ’s passing, DCFS has collaborated with our partners from the Office of the Inspector General and experts from around the state that make up the multi-disciplinary Child Death Review Teams. Their recommendations have played a key role in DCFS successfully improving child abuse investigations in Illinois.
The Child Protection division of DCFS has implemented SBAR (Situation, Background, Assessment and Recommend) which was first implemented by the military and is a critical thinking and decision tool used by our field teams and supervisors. This tool provides essential concise information supporting critical decision making among team members and led to improvements in the quality of investigations and the support our frontline teams receive from their supervisors. The department, in consultation with Jill Glick, M.D., a board certified child abuse pediatrician and one of the leading experts on child maltreatment, has also expanded training related to the signs and symptoms of child abuse. Additionally, DCFS made a new mobile app available to investigators that uses tools developed by Mary Clyde Pierce, M.D., a child abuse expert who focuses on injuries in children with an emphasis on differentiating abusive from accidental trauma.
Pardon my frustration, but tell me that doesn’t sound like a bunch of corporate bureaucratic bulls—t that doesn’t actually solve a problem.
If Governor Pritzker were serious about reforms to DCFS [and, thus far, he has shown he isn’t] he would have long replaced Director Marc Smith, who is facing contempt of court charges until the next time the Bears win the Super Bowl sometime in the 2080’s. He would have authorized radical changes in rulemaking and structure to make protecting children the only goal of the agency. Today, investigators are more focused on “keeping families together,” and if life has taught us anything, it’s that sometimes families shouldn’t be together.
After Monday’s testimony, it’s hard to imagine a situation where Acosta and Polovin aren’t convicted.
DCFS, you’re on notice.