the rest at Chicago TribThe state of Illinois has declined to renew its foster care and adoption contracts with Catholic Charities across Illinois, possibly ending a historic public and private partnership initiated by the Roman Catholic Church a half century ago and potentially severing the relationship between 2,500 foster children and their caseworkers.
Who else will the State of Illinois look to shut down?
Lawyers for three of the Catholic Charities agencies will seek an injunction from a Sangamon County judge on Tuesday.
In a letter sent last week to Catholic Charities in the dioceses of Peoria, Joliet, Springfield and Belleville, the Department of Children and Family Services told all four agencies that the state could not accept its signed contracts for the 2012 fiscal year because “your agency has made it clear that it does not intend to comply with the Illinois Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act.”
“That law applies to foster care and adoption services,” each letter stated. “Thus, there is no meeting of the minds as to the [Fiscal Year 2012] Foster Care and Adoption Contracts.”
Last month, Catholic Charities in the dioceses of Springfield, Peoria and Joliet sued the Illinois attorney general and DCFS for threatening to enforce new policies that accommodate civil unions. The three agencies asked the court to declare that they are legally justified to preserve their current policy of exclusively granting licenses to married couples and single, non-cohabiting individuals and referring couples in civil unions to other child welfare agencies.
State of Illinois severs foster-care ties with Catholic Charities
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
One question nobody seems to have directly addressed is whether Catholic Charities needs a state contract in order to handle any adoptions at all. IF it can operate privately, without a state contract, the state decision wouldn't be totally out of line. IF only those agencies with state contracts may handle adoptions, or if the state is also denying a license to handle adoptions, then the decision is definitely wrong.
SJ, to directly answer the concern you posed, yes, CC needs a state contract for foster care. Any child that needs foster care is placed by way of the state office or a licensed agency with which they contract. In general (and I don't know if this is specifically true of Illinois, so someone correct me please if I am wrong), the state often places the "basic-care" foster children, while more "special-needs" foster children are often placed through contracting agencies.
The only way I have seen a private adoption agency run is through direct biological-parent(s)-to-adopting-parents services. An agency that contracts with the state can also help children currently in the foster care system become adopted. However, that said, all adoption agencies must be licensed with the state, as well, even if they don't contract.
Thanks. I thought that might be the case. I would think that state criteria should be narrowly drawn for the purpose of ensuring the safety of the children. The legitimate role for licensing would be to prevent children being sold into various forms of slavery, kept in rotting substandard houses by avaricious couples making a business of "adoption," etc.
Obviously the state's lawyers disagree. In my view, the problem is that every time the state decides to relax a restriction in state law, it expects everyone to conform, rather than leave people of various viewpoints free to act on them, as long as the child is not actually endangered. (Placement with a heterosexual married couple can hardly be construed as child endangerment).
Post a Comment