Pragmatic optimism is in short supply these days, but two Illinois Supreme Court justices embody such a philosophy.

Last week Lauren Warnecke, of Bloomington’s WGLT-FM, spoke with Justices Elizabeth Rochford and Mary Kay O’Brien about a range of topics, notably the success of McLean County’s family treatment court. It’s the only such program in the state, operating since October 2024 on a $750,000 federal grant from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

The program is offered to parents brought into the court system on child welfare concerns involving substance abuse. Optimism in such situations tends to be rare, and with good reason.

Rather than a directly punitive approach, those who opt-in can access an interventionist approach. That means more frequent court appearances and close progress monitoring in hopes of catching any missteps before they become full backslides and, when proper, giving incentives for progress all in the name of treatment and getting families back together as soon as possible.

The alternative usually is shuffling kids into foster care and tossing parents into prisons, which is clerically much easier but considerably less redemptive.

“The best results come from seeing the cycle broken,” O’Brien said. Specifically that often means trying to keep children of struggling parents from ending up in criminal court themselves as adults. It’s possible – that’s optimism. Rochford gave the pragmatic quote:

“We are talking about treating and assisting one person and one family at a time. But the impact of that one person or that one family is far more reaching – into the neighborhood, into the community, into the next generation.”

Selfishly, I enjoy retelling this story because I support any efforts to use the justice system to actually correct and improve lives and repair brokenness for the benefit of larger society. But practically, as an observer of state government, it’s worth noting just to provide a heads up that eventually lawmakers will push to scale the McLean model statewide.

“Keeping a family intact, helping them overcome their challenges, we’ve learned is the best bet for the child,” O’Brien said. “If we want our kids to be successful, the best thing we can do is help support and give them a nurturing family. Seeing some parents that are on the road, have gotten their kids back, but are still willing to participate because of how much it’s helpful to them, means that this is a success, and we should be doing it everywhere.”

The General Assembly doesn’t always listen to the Supreme Court, but these kinds of success stories, even small, have fueled statewide reforms before. Reformers seize on such momentum and the same should be expected here.

Good goals, hard work and, eventually, a better Illinois.

• Scott T. Holland writes about state government issues for Shaw Local News Network. He can be reached at sholland@shawmedia.com.