Defending Families Against DCFS

Illinois
July 29th, 2025

A caseworker for an Illinois foster child who later died had orders of protection filed against her by eight women for allegedly harassing, abusing, and threatening violence against them.

The caseworker, who was employed by Lutheran Child and Family Services, is now employed by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.

The foster child, Mackenzi Felmlee, 18, was subjected to cruelty before her death in May 2024, according to search warrants released in the case.

DCFS still refuses to release a report regarding Felmlee’s treatment.

Read the full story here:

Caseworker for foster child who later died had troubling history, documents show Illinois DCFS caseworker with troubling past linked to foster teen Mackenzi Felmlee’s death investigation.

Illinois
July 21st, 2025

Mackenzi Felmlee fell through the safety net of doctors, judges, lawyers, social workers, teachers, child welfare organizations and the state agency charged with protecting abused and neglected children in Illinois until she was found bruised and struggling to breathe at the bottom of the basement stairs in a Fairview Heights foster home.
Read the full story below

‘The public deserves to know.’ State agency withholds details in girl’s death The Illinois Department of Children and Family Services has refused to release a timeline or reports detailing their actions in the case — despite a law that requires DCFS to make findings and recommendations available when a child dies or is seriously injured in its care.

How can the judiciary help narrow the front door to child protection?
December 04, 2020

Across the country, too many children enter foster care each year, with the majority (62%) entering as a result of neglect. State mandatory reporting laws contain expansive criteria for reporting child maltreatment, including broad categories of neglect that include poverty-related issues that do not warrant the involvement of child protection agencies. Subjecting families to unnecessary involvement has detrimental human and socioeconomic implications, especially for communities of color. Judge Ernestine S. Gray of the Orleans Parish Juvenile Court in New Orleans understands the trauma families and children endure when they are separated. Her approach to reserve foster care for only the most extreme cases has fundamentally shifted the front door of child welfare in New Orleans Parish.

https://www.casey.org/judge-gray-interview/

A Quiet Revolution: How Judicial Discipline Essentially Eliminated Foster Care and Nearly Went Unnoticed.
University of Michigan Law School
2022

Judge Gray approached every hearing over which she presided with a laser focus on ensuring that children were only placed in foster care when the State proved its burden of the necessity of care. She articulated this in a formal interview with Casey Family Programs: When it comes down to it, I apply the law rigidly and do what I believe the law requires, which means not removing children from their families unless absolutely necessary. Sometimes there is tension between what I consider to be the appropriate thing in a case and what someone else might consider appropriate: If the child protection agency can’t offer evidence that a child’s safety is imminently at risk, I send the child home to their family, consistently.

https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3691&context=articles

Does the foster care system endanger children? New book 'Wards of the State' asks that question

July 16th, 2025

More than 350,000 American kids are now wards of the state — that means the government has assumed the parental role for these foster children.
Author Claudia Rowe joins NPR's Here & Now to discuss her new book "Wards of the State: The Long Shadow of American Foster Care."

Does the foster care system endanger children? New book 'Wards of the State' asks that question More than 350,000 American kids are now wards of the state — that means the government has assumed the parental role for these foster children.

Lawmakers have paved the way for New York to become one of only two states in the country that requires people reporting child abuse and neglect to identify themselves.
If signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul, the bill passed by the state Legislature Monday would address the long-standing but controversial practice of accepting anonymous calls at the state hotline. Bill proponents say the reform is needed to free up CPS workers to focus on credible claims instead of pursuing false reports made under the cover of anonymity.
Parents who have testified before the Legislature and legal advocates say anonymous callers who make false reports subject families to far too many frightening home investigations that have lingering effects on kids.

NY Lawmakers Pass Bill to Ban Anonymous CPS Hotline Reports If signed into law, the bill passed Monday would make New York the second state to require people reporting child abuse and neglect to identify themselves.

Georgia
March, 2025

About 41% of Georgia children removed to foster care were taken partly because of caretaker alcohol or drug abuse, according to the most recent year of federal statistics. For Georgia children under the age of one in foster care, 61% were removed for parental drug or alcohol abuse as a factor, higher than the national average.

Georgia DFCS relied on controversial laboratory for drug tests crucial to custody decisions - The Current Investigation reveals how Georgia child welfare agency DFCS handled allegations against its drug testing provider, Averhealth, after whistleblower complaint and false claims probe by Department of Justice. The allegations of testing issues occurred during the time a Camden County mother tested posit...

Commentary on the media.
Illinois, January, 8th 2024.

Critically examining how the media protects the policy and procedure implemented by DCFS and the judicial authorities who neglect to act on behalf of justice and the rights of children and parents.

Described as a symptom of child placement option shortages, wards of the state in Illinois languish in institutions and facilities long after they should have returned home. State administrators and reporting media, fail to describe this crisis of child welfare mismanagement as the symptom of what it really is; Unbridled, unaccountable, authority to separate children from their families. Unwilling to admit the realities of state and federal laws, or state policy and procedure, granting exceptionally gross authority to separate children from their families far to frequently. Resulting in an over abundance of wards.
It is not more placement options that Illinois DCFS needs. It is not more money. Rather what DCFS needs is to stop removing children from families as often as they do. Rather than having only one option to end alleged child abuse and neglect: parent and child separation. The department should provide children and families with services that rehabilitate, unite, secure, and strengthen the resiliency and protective factors of Illinois families.

While the department continues to separate families rather than unite them, it will continue to neglect the welfare of wards whom it claims to be protecting.

Report: 1,009 children in Illinois DCFS care kept in facilities longer than they needed to | WICS Over 1,000 kids in Illinois Department of Children and Family Servicescare were kept in facilities longer than they needed to be, according to a report released

Illinois
August 18, 2023

Ex-Illinois DCFS Employee, 14 Others Charged In $3.2M Fraud Scheme

A former Illinois Department of Children and Family Services worker and 14 other people are accused of participating in a scheme to fraudulently obtain more than three-million dollars in state funds intended for childcare services.

A federal indictment claims Shauntele Pridgeon orchestrated the fraud scheme from 2016 to 2022 while serving as a Community Social Service Planner for DCFS in Chicago. Pridgeon directed millions of dollars in state funds to the co-defendants for nonexistent childcare services. The co-defendants then paid bribes and kickbacks to Pridgeon totaling around one-point-six-million dollars.

https://www.effinghamradio.com/2023/08/18/ex-illinois-dcfs-employee-14-others-charged-in-3-2m-fraud-scheme/ #

Ex-Illinois DCFS Employee, 14 Others Charged In $3.2M Fraud Scheme Chicago, IL-(Effingham Radio)- A former Illinois Department of Children and Family Services worker and 14 othe...

Let’s celebrate our progress and share stories of family triumph during this National Reunification Month.

Reunification is Worthy of Immeasurable Time, A Message From Aysha E. Schomburg—June 2023 | Vol. 24, No. 5 Written by Associate Commissioner Aysha E. Schomburg In a perfect world every family would have what it needs, whether that is concrete supports such as housing and cash, or even access to culturally appropriate

Illinois June 1st 2023
The state of Illinois made a nine-year-old girl pay for a month's stay in a psych hospital that she didn't need.
A bill totaling over $30,000.
She was in the care of the state child welfare agency, DCFS, who defends the practice.

DCFS charges 9 year old $30K, would-be adoptive mom says money is needed for child's future "A lot of the foster kids end up being homeless, they say. I can see why. DCFS is taking their money from them."

Defending Families Against DCFS Illinois endorses the work of the Parental Rights Foundation and the EPPIC Podcast.

This week, Homeschool Legal Defense Association staff attorney Peter Kamakawiwoole returns to the Eppic Broadcast. Peter tells us about a case that he litigated on behalf of a mom who found herself dealing with an invasive CPS investigation including strip searches of her young children – all because she left her children in the car for a few minutes to buy coffee and muffins.

Challenging CPS Overreach with Peter Kamakawiwoole - Parental Rights Foundation This week, Homeschool Legal Defense Association staff attorney Peter Kamakawiwoole returns to the Eppic Broadcast. Peter tells us about a case that he litigated on behalf of a mom who found herself dealing with an invasive CPS investigation including strip searches of her young children – all beca...