At 48, having raised three children now in their 20s, Jeanette Byrd is back in a world of diapers, day care and cartoons.
In the last two years, Byrd’s 3-year-old granddaughter and 1-year-old grandson were placed in her care by the Department of Children and Family Services, and now she’s on the path toward permanent guardianship of the children.
“If I can’t, then who will?” Byrd said of her decision to take care of her grandchildren.
The kids — energetic toddlers who are quick to offer a toy, a hug or one of their tiny Nike sneakers — are two of more than 10,000 young people in DCFS care who live with relatives, according to the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois.
Byrd had to go through a lengthy process to get certified as a guardian for the kids while also holding down a job as a fire inspector and, more recently, studying for her bachelor’s degree in health care administration online. She went through a background check process she said was similar to what she already had to do for her job, and took hours of classes on parenting to be able to receive support from the state. The state licensing procedure allowed her to receive benefits including about $1,300 a month in financial assistance.
Legislation that would make it easier for relatives like Byrd to get licensed as foster parents and receive assistance is expected to be considered in early January by the state House, having already passed through the Senate. Gov. JB Pritzker has said he will sign the measure if it gets to his desk.
About 60% of family members caring for children under the auspices of DCFS could gain access to additional financial help through provisions in the bill, according to the Illinois ACLU, which has helped shepherd the bill through the General Assembly. That could bring additional resources to thousands of families statewide.
“Support for kin, for relatives who have not received the same kind of support that foster parents do, for example … I think is a very important component of dealing with the amount of time that a child spends in custody of DCFS,” Pritzker said when asked about the Kinship in Demand Act earlier this month. “We want to make sure they get back into a home environment as fast as humanly possible.”
The kin guardianship bill, or KIND Act, last month passed in the Senate without opposition, but if it doesn’t pass in its current form in the House during the short lame-duck session scheduled for early January, backers will have to start from scratch after a new General Assembly is sworn in on Jan. 8.
With support from the governor and the head of DCFS, people close to the bill expect it to pass.
“Justice delayed is justice denied, so we don’t want to delay or deny, but the hope is that it would be called” during the upcoming lame-duck session, said Democratic Rep. Marcus Evans of Chicago, who sponsored the bill along with Democratic Sen. Mattie Hunter of Chicago.
Democratic Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, who will be key in determining whether the bill is called up for a House vote, supported an earlier version of the bill, and House Democrats will review the latest amendment, a spokesperson for Welch said.
Proponents of the legislation said keeping kids with family members can reduce trauma, provide a clearer path toward possible reunification with their parents, help make placements more permanent when needed and reduce the number of children that need to be housed by DCFS.
“Who’s gonna stand for these kids? Who’s gonna help these kids? And if you have people that are willing to stand for these kids, what are you gonna do to stand and help them?” Byrd asked.
Early this year, the bill had a number of opponents, including adoption service providers and the Cook County public guardian who said parts of the bill were unclear or had other issues. But much of the opposition disappeared after tweaks were made during the spring legislative session. One amendment clarified how a caregiver would be certified if there was more than one relative who wanted to take in the child, for example.
“If there’s a need to remove kids from the parents to keep them safe, they’re going to do better with relatives than they are in a foster situation — nonrelatives — with strangers,” Cook County Public Guardian Charles Golbert said. “It makes sense that we can relax some foster care standards if we know that they’re going to a loving aunt or uncle or grandma.”
DCFS over the last several years has moved toward kinship care, said Loni Wilson, statewide director of foster care at Brightpoint, an Illinois child and family services organization. Many private agencies and the state are now aligned in this mission, she said.
The legislation also comes as DCFS has new leadership. Pritzker appointed Heidi Mueller as director of the department earlier this year, and she has been a vocal supporter of kinship care.
Her predecessor, Marc Smith, also a Pritzker appointee, had a tumultuous tenure. Problems detailed in a scathing report from the state’s auditor general last year included delays in reporting abuse to local prosecutors. DCFS has also faced criticism for keeping children in emergency or psychiatric facilities longer than medically necessary.
While the legislation is “not a magic wand that we’re going to wave and solve the placement crisis overnight,” Golbert, the public guardian, said, it’s a “piece of the puzzle.”
Overall, the new bill would help caregivers who take in family members receive the same financial benefits as other foster parents, even if they don’t undergo the same training and approval process. It would eliminate certain requirements for square footage and number of bedrooms for homes taking in children, and change how criminal backgrounds are evaluated with the intention of ensuring that past convictions for minor crimes don’t get in the way of a path to guardianship.
The definition of “relative” in the bill includes “fictive kin,” people unrelated to the child by blood or marriage who are nonetheless close to the child or their family. DCFS spokesperson Heather Tarczan in a statement highlighted the bill’s attention to “the role that fictive kin play in families and importance of keeping children in their communities with people who already know and love them.”
The bill has received support from organizations including the Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness and the Shriver Center on Poverty Law.
LaTanya Jackson Wilson, vice president of advocacy at Shriver, said if children can’t be kept with their parents, placing them with extended family is often the best option.
Lynn Morton, an Austin neighborhood resident, took in her nephews when they were about 9 and 10 after their parents separated and cared for them until they had started high school, when their mother came back in the picture, she said. While her nephews weren’t in DCFS care, Morton has advocated for the KIND Act with Community Organizing and Family Issues, a role informed by her own experience.
Taking in her nephews was even more of a struggle without the benefits of state assistance, she said.
“I was out of work at the time, and I was unable to get food stamps, medical services, anything, I could not get, because I was their aunt, and so it was a struggle,” Morton said. “And everybody does not have the capacity that I had to have other families step in to help take care of us.”
The kids, who now live out of state, experienced a lot of emotional turmoil during that time in their lives, she said. They were suspended from school and both eventually went to prison, though they are no longer incarcerated, Morton said.
“It should be easier for a family member to pass through whatever checks they need to pass through and be able to take their relatives into their home,” she said. She added she hopes Springfield will also pass legislation that makes it easier for families who take in children to receive counseling.
Mamie L. Cosey of East St. Louis first cared for relatives involved with DCFS decades ago. Cosey cared for her grandchildren for a period after they were taken from her daughter’s custody, she said. Eventually, the kids were reunited with their mother.
Years later, Cosey took in three great-grandchildren who were in DCFS care, she said. Despite having a degree concentration in early childhood, she was required to take classes to get licensed as a foster parent and received financial assistance from DCFS, she said.
Her grandchildren are doing well: One is finishing high school, one has graduated from welding school and another is getting ready to go to junior college, she said. Cosey considers her story a testament to the benefits of keeping children with family.
“The main thing is they were kept in my home, and I am grateful. I am excited about what they have achieved,” Cosey said of her great-grandchildren.
Cosey’s daughter has helped out with the kids, and the kids’ father has kept in touch sporadically, she said.
The 83-year-old said she believes this relative stability will help keep the kids — now young adults who continue to deal with mental health issues — “stable after I’m gone.”
Evans, the bill sponsor, said that for both family and strangers, the question as a state is: “If you’re a person who wants to help a child get a stable home, are we doing all we can?”
Speaking at her home in west suburban Berkeley earlier this month, Byrd said she was looking forward to giving Christmas gifts to her grandchildren and, in the longer term, helping them have a normal life despite a tumultuous early childhood.
The toddlers, fans of Bluey, Spider-Man and Moana, danced to an anime song in the light of their Bluey-themed Christmas tree after the interview with their grandmother.
“I’m gonna make it,” Byrd said of her path forward caring for the children. “And I just really want to support my grandkids. I want them to know that somebody — not to say that their parents don’t care, and I’m not implying that — but somebody loved me enough to say, ‘Hey, I got you.’”