We all know what a bum wrap this under budgeted, understaffed, and overworked group of caring, concerned individuals gets, right? Take a look at the involvement in my case of this powerful government organization - funded by tens of millions of your tax dollars - and to which the fate of countless thousands of children are entrusted. Judge for yourself.

My first experience with the Department of Children and Family Services began in 1993. A co-worker with whom I had confided in for some time regarding the mother's abuse of the children, began relaying this information to a friend that worked in the Princeton, Illinois office of DCFS. The message back from this person was that, while the situation and incidents I described constituted serious endangerment and abuse of the children, I should be very careful in getting DCFs involved. According to my co-worker, the woman stated, "He needs to know that if DCFS gets involved, its likely nothing will happen for 6 months, and then one day out of the blue, they might show up at his door to take the kids away from both of them - and he may never get them back." At that time, I decided not to involve DCFS.

Later, after more and more violent attacks against me, horrific acts of verbal and psychological abuse against the children, and continuous threats to kill the children on the part of their now suicidal mother (and the mother's boyfriend's father), I again considered involving DCFS. By now, I thought, I was convinced the possibility of having the children put in a foster home was better than the very real chance that the children's mother, who had by now attempted suicide twice, would carry out her constant threats to kill them.

After one particularly harrowing event, I decided to call the woman in the Princeton office, but was unable to reach her after several days. I eventually contacted a man in DCFS's Freeport, Illinois office. (Why Freeport, I don't recall.) After several minutes on the phone with the investigator during which he informed me that I would have to call the Hotline number to report the situation, he appeared to be telling me that after doing so, they in turn, would fax the local office with instructions or recommendations on handling the case, and - you guessed it - in all likelihood, nothing would happen for months, until one day they showed up to take the kids away to a foster home were they could remain indefinitely. Once again, I opted not to involve DCFS, but to continue pursuing the matter through the local law enforcement and judicial systems.

Finally, in 1999 it seemed to have become necessary to again reconsider involving DCFS. I filed abuse/endangerment charges against the children's mother with Investigator B of the Sterling office of DCFS. Mr. B seemed to be concerned about my allegations over the hour or so that we talked, said that he intended to interview the children that day at school, but then ended our conversation by saying that, "...if your kids don't show me a broken arm or leg, or some other major part hanging off their bodies, and say that 'mommy did it and I want to go to court to testify against her', there's really nothing that can be or will be done."

Mr. B also indicated that I would be contacted within 24-48 hours, at least to be made aware of the status of the investigation, and probably to be interviewed myself after the mother inevitably filed charges against me in retaliation. I was never contacted, and after several weeks, I called Mr. B. I was told that he "had more people to talk to" but didn't know when he'd be able to get around to it.  When pressed, he admitted that he had not spoken to either the teacher who would attest to constantly finding bruises on the children's mother's 11 year old sister from her beatings, or to the children's daycare provider who kept years of logs regarding her abuse. Regardless, he stated that he had already determined that the charges were unfounded, and that I would be receiving a letter shortly to that affect.

More recently, a licensed clinical social worker with an extensive background in working with children, and a notable Ph.D. specializing in abused and neglected children and parental alienation (and also founder of the Neon Streets children's home in Chicago) have become involved in the case, in fulfillment of the terms of the Joint Parenting Agreement. In the almost 9 years that this case has been going on, they were the first people to speak to any of the 60+ witnesses to my children's abuse.

After the first witness interview, with the children's first daycare provider, which they left after 2 1/2 hours due to the lateness of the hour with her telling them that she had so much more to tell and show them, they communicated to me that they were now mandated by law under Illinois' Mandatory Reporting Statute, and by the terms of the Joint Parenting Agreement, to file abuse charges against the children's mother with DCFS. Per the terms of the Joint Parenting Agreement, they were to notify me and my attorney, her and her attorney, and the court, that she presented a significant danger to the children. During our conversation, one of the investigators stated that based on what they had learned even this early on in the investigation, they intended to advise the court that she was a "child predator", and should be treated as such.

After conducting hundreds of hours of observations of the children and I together, and interviews with me, the children, family members, the day care provider, teachers, friends of mine and past friends of the children's mother, and other witnesses to the children's abuse, these two highly experienced and qualified psychological professionals - court ordered to be involved in the case - contacted the local DCFS office in Sterling. They explained who they were, their credentials, their involvement in the case and their findings - and strongly urged the office to pursue an investigation of the children's mother.

And what did The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services' Sterling Office do to protect the children? Investigator B and Supervisor C immediately called the children's mother's attorney to inform them that I had "hired actors to pretend to be child psychologists" in an effort to trick their office into becoming involved in a scheme to harass the children's mother. They even offered to both go to court with the children's mother's attorney and testify against me...which they did...to the same judge that ordered me to involve them in the case. Needless to say, the requested investigation was never begun.

Shortly after this, I called the DCFS Advocacy Office in Springfield (also known as the DCFS Ombudsman's Office - or at least they have the same phone number). I called for two reasons: One, to report the outrageous behavior of the staff of the local Sterling office, and two, to get a real investigation under way that might lead to the protection of my children. These offices are billed as the place to go when a citizen is not satisfied with the performance of their local office. In actuality, it appears that what they really are (as - it turns out - is the State's Attorney General Child Welfare Office) is a place where they store all the lawyers that represent DCFS when they do get involved in a case, and inevitably manage to make matters much worse than they were. Case in point:

I spoke with a Ms. M at the DCFS Advocacy Office. Ms. M originally struck me as the most caring and compassionate of any person I had come across in an official capacity since the beginning of this case. During our first conversation, I outlined a little (no doubt, much more than she cared to know) bit of the mother's violent, abusive behavior, especially that directed towards the children. I also described the actions taken by the local DCFS staff, requested to file an official complaint against them, an asked that an investigation be conducted by their office regarding these matters. Also during this conversation, I happened to mention to Ms. M that I had just received a fairly large envelope from my attorney, and that I believed it may include an affidavit from the psychologist and the L.C.S.W. involved in the case. I repeatedly requested that she, or someone from her office, or whomever might be taking the case, contact one or both of the evaluators themselves, and that in the mean time, if I did find an affidavit from one or both of them, I would try to fax it to her with a day or two. She said she would examine the fax, but indicated that it was most likely that no one was going to try to actually contact either of the two court ordered psychological professionals who actually filed the abuse charges.

Well, the envelope didn't contain any affidavits. And I went out of town, and didn't reach Ms. M by phone for about another 5 days. When I did, her attitude towards me had completely changed. I don't know what or who got to her, but it was quite obvious from the word "go" that she was now one of the bad guys. The L.C.S.W. involved in the case later phoned her himself. He told me that in all his years working with DCFS, he had never experienced anything like the conversation with Ms. M. He used the term "aggressively adversarial" to describe her, saying that while he, as as a licensed professiona,l made every effort to make their office aware of the need to conduct an investigation into the abuse of my children, Ms. M was clearly only concerned with interrogating and discrediting him, focusing particularly on the fact that he had used a cell phone rather than an office line to contact her.

Several weeks later, I myself, tried to reach Ms. M, who told me: "Yes, I would like to discuss the matter with you, but only in the presence of my supervisor and our legal counsel." I agreed, and we set up a time for the three of them to have a conference call with me and the two evaluators. The day finally arrived, and I listened for approximately 45 minutes while Ms. M, her supervisor, I believe that person's supervisor, and their legal counsel, argued about the L.C.S.W.'s use of a cell phone, and the questionably professional look of the Ph.D.'s letterhead. (All the while, the two evaluators asked these people to simply ask the Deputy Director, the Inspector General, or the Director of DCFS himself if they knew who they were, but they refused. As far as I can recall, nothing was ever said by the DCFS personnel suggesting any concern for the welfare of my children. And though the evaluators complied with all of the requests for verification of their credentials, to the best of my knowledge, no investigation has ever been done into the actions of the local DCFS office, and I am certain, no action has been taken regarding the abuse, neglect, endangerment and alienation of my children.

In summary, what I have found is this. The Department of Children and Family Services exists on several levels. The first, local level exists to stay out of as many cases as possible. Most, if not all, other levels exist to dig them out of  the mess the first level's incompetence has managed to get them into. Other than a few isolated individuals - perhaps a few idealistic recent M.S.W. and L.C.S.W. grads I assume are sprinkled throughout the system - it appears there are few people within this organization that actually care about the welfare of the State's children.