Date: Sunday, April 19, 1998
Edition: CHICAGOLAND FINAL
Section: METRO CHICAGO Page: 1 Zone: C
Source: By Sue Ellen Christian, Tribune Staff Writer.

A team of child welfare investigators arrived at the door of the south suburban brick home on a recent afternoon to peer into its cupboards and question its occupants as part of an unprecedented review by the state.

Throughout this month, the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services is conducting its first-ever evaluation of homes in which five or more foster children have been placed to ensure that caretakers are not overloaded, children are supervised and safe, and the household can handle the crowd.

The review of larger foster families attempts to resolve a difficult question: How many children are too many--particularly if they aren't your own?

As investigators progressed through the south suburban home, there was the unspoken acknowledgment that the effort was prompted by last month's fatal beating of 5-year-old David Jones, allegedly by his two foster brothers.

Authorities believe up to nine children may have lived in the home of David's single foster mother.

The visits began on March 27 and will conclude around the end of April. As of the first week of April, after reviewing one-third of the roughly 800 large foster families in Cook County--there are only about 200 others to visit outside Cook--children have been removed from only two homes.

"The big issue here was to be sure these kids were safe in these settings," DCFS Director Jess McDonald said. "If you have more kids in a home you increase the possibility of harm, of things going wrong."

Toward that end, McDonald in January limited the number of children generally allowed in new foster homes to a total of six, including biological, adopted and foster kids. Six children is the limit set by the national accrediting body for child welfare services.

But while the state, for reasons of management and efficiency, must set standards on foster family size, the reality is that every home has its own boiling point.

Experts agree that sometimes one particularly irascible 8-year-old is enough for an entire household. In other cases, seven siblings keep tabs on each other and order prevails.

"Probably some people shouldn't even have one child," said the foster mother whose home was being inspected. "It's individually based. It depends on the person."

For confidentiality reasons, DCFS does not allow the use of the name of the foster mother or her foster children.

The team was sent to the south suburban home because the woman has six foster children--ages 15, 15, 12, 12, 11 and 9. None of the children are related, and the woman's daughter, 19, lives in the three-bedroom home as well.

Though the foster mother, age 50, has only one leg, she moves around her orderly home easily on crutches.

"This is a full-time job," said the woman, who worked as a computer operator for 25 years. The family's caseworker visits the home two or three times a week and all the kids know his name.

For 40 minutes, Madelyn Love, the state investigator assigned to the family, examined the physical workings of the house with the courteous but firm air of a doctor making a diagnosis.

Walking through each room, Love consulted a checklist and posed her own questions. She lifted up a bedspread. Opened closets. Looked into drawers.

Read the book titles on the shelves. She was, she said, on the lookout for "any observable hazards, anything inappropriate in the home."

Later, as the children returned home from school, the review turned from the body to the soul of the home.

The DCFS investigators split up the children to talk with them alone; one boy on the porch, another on the overstuffed sofa in the living room. In a series of questions meant as a check-and-balance of the foster parent, the investigators asked: How often does the family eat together? What do you do for fun? What happens when you do something bad?

The foster mother said that problems in large foster families would be drastically reduced if caseworkers from private agencies, which DCFS pays to monitor the care of children in foster homes, were more available.

David Jones' foster home was overseen by a small, newer private agency DCFS paid to monitor foster care cases.

David's foster mother, Karen Starks, told authorities the two oldest of her three children, ages 9, 13 and 14, lived with her sister. The 9- and 14-year-old are charged with David's murder. Apparently, the private agency caseworker visiting the home each week did not notice the older biological children were staying at the home, officials say.

The south suburban foster mother herself grew up in a home of seven children. She says the key to running a home with many kids is that "you have to have a system."

In the kitchen at the rear of the brick home, there is a list of regular chores--kitchen duty, bathroom, dusting and so forth--for each of the children. On the wall above the chore list and the handwritten menu detailing the next week's meals (scrambled eggs, sausage links, toast, milk and fruit for one breakfast) is a poem entitled, "What is a Mother?"

Curfew for the younger children is when the street lights come on, since they don't have watches. Each child an area for clothes, including sections of metal pipes in the basement from which some of the boys hang their shirts and trousers.

Each child has their a "hygiene box" with toothpaste and a washcloth that is changed every two days.

The woman says her household feels like a family to her. Coming home from school, one 12-year-old boy greets her with "Hi mom." He is white. The foster mother is black. When he arrived in February 1997, the youngster called her racist names and swore at her.

The boy was interviewed by DCFS supervisor Margaret Cortright, who wondered if he knew the rules of the foster home.

Indeed. Throughout the interview, the boy rifled them off. Can't use the phone without supervision. Make your bed in the morning unless you're late for the school bus. You're grounded if you break a serious rule, such as fighting with your foster brothers, which he has, or playing with fire, which he did.

Cortright wondered if the punishment did any good. "It did," the boy said. "I don't like matches anymore."

Historically, foster parents, particularly in rural areas, cared for large numbers of children; it was not uncommon for eight or more foster children to grow up on the acreage of a sprawling family farm.

But the norm today in Illinois is urban foster homes, which are closer to distractions and have little elbow room.

Under the January guidelines, DCFS in general will not allow more than four children under six years of age in a foster home and no more than two children under two years of age.

DCFS does not track whether there is a higher incidence of problems coming out of larger foster families. But Jim Gleeson, professor in the Jane Addams College of Social Work at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said that more children in a home does not necessarily mean there will be problems.

Other factors influence how many children a home can handle, said Gleeson, including a foster parents' support system of relatives and neighbors, and the helpfulness of their caseworker, not to mention the attention required by a particular child.

Depending on a child's age, foster parents receive from about $11 a day to $13.80 a day. Parents caring for children with special emotional or physical needs receive from approximately $25 daily to $110 daily.

Cook County Public Guardian Patrick Murphy and others say that for some foster parents, particularly those caring for children unrelated to them, the incentive to take in more kids is to make more money.

Many foster parents, however, including the south suburban foster mother, say that's not true; the DCFS payments are hardly money-making propositions.

Tag: 9804190393
Keywords:
ILLINOIS AGENCY PROBE CHILD DEATH PARENT FAMILY ABUSE

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