Illinois Department of Children and Family Services
FFY 2011 Annual Progress and Services Report
340
Another community provider has recently begun to facilitate groups about sexual exploitation
and human trafficking for youth in the shelter. This group will be continuous and it will attempt
to reach the ongoing and revolving population of youth who are admitted to the shelter. The
goal of the group is to educate and support the youth about the dangers of the street and thereby
positively impact their high risk behaviors. Youth are also provided with access to a 24 Hour
Hotline for the purpose of crisis intervention and advocacy as well as ongoing support in the
event that youth are victimized.
The shelter program is exploring several options for future programming in order to enhance
the services already being provided. Expressive therapies are being introduced to youth in order
to provide alternative outlets as they begin their journey of healing.
All the shelters employ workers that have the responsibility of acting as liaisons to the
child/youth’s home school. By making sure that children/youth attend their home school during
a shelter episode, children/youth will be able to maintain relationships with their teachers and
friends. This approach is providing some stability in the lives of the children/youth that are
experiencing this significant disruption in their lives.
Similar to long term placement, discharge planning continues to begin immediately upon
admission to the Cook County Shelter System. To that end, all children/youth are scheduled for
a Child and Youth Investment Team (CAYIT) meeting within 7 days of shelter admission. Two
CAYIT teams have responsibility to staff everyone that enters the Cook County Shelter
System. The CAYIT teams continue to follow the children/youth until they are placed. The
CAYIT supervisor participates with the Centralized Matching Team, which matches the youth
to the most appropriate placement provider. This direct link with the matching process helps
the Matching Team by providing current information about the status of the children/youth in
the shelter.
A new downstate shelter recently came on board in FY10. It mirrors the Cook Children’ s
Reception Center in terms of the referral process, taking into account disruptions and the after
hours placement issues when there is not a relative to care for the child(ren) and it is after
hours. This shelter is called “Night Shield”.
Resources for Placing Children in Their Own School Districts
SchoolMinder remains the geographic information systems (GIS) tool used by the Department
for keeping youth in their schools upon removal from the home of their natural parent for
reasons of abuse and/or neglect. The goal is to keep children (when clinically appropriate)
within individual school catchments areas (Chicago) or within their school district (rest of the
state). Failing the primary goal, the secondary goal is to find the closest clinically appropriate
placement for the child, in the hopes the child will be able to continue enrollment in the school
or district they are attending. A proximate placement-driven process also facilitates supervised
family and sibling visitations, encouraging positive child welfare outcomes such as family
reunification.
Use of SchoolMinder also simplifies foster home recruiting. Now that intake is steered towards
the closest clinically appropriate resources, GIS analytical tools (density mapping, nearest
neighbor analysis, etc.) are used to identify local communities (neighborhoods) in greatest need
