DCFS

The Department of Children and Family Services is investigating the circumstances surrounding the death Thursday of a 23-month-old Polo toddler, killed by a self-inflicted gunshot, an agency spokesman said.

Two years after a ProPublica investigation, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services still is not complying with a federal court order to better serve Spanish-speaking families.

In its ruling, the Public Access Bureau found that not only did DCFS employee text messages exist which the Northwest Herald might have been entitled to examine, but the agency didn’t search for those messages until more than two months after the newspaper submitted its request.

Former DCFS employee Carlos Acosta will be allowed to travel to Texas at the end of July

Lawyers who represent children in the state’s foster care system plan to ask a federal judge this week to take enforcement action against the Department of Children and Family Services, claiming the agency is still out of compliance with a nearly 30-year-old consent decree

DCFS has no formal process to identify youth who might identify as LGBTQ, uses outdated or non-existent computer systems to track youth in care, audit finds

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