Elian Got Attention Needed by Thousands of Kids

U of Ideas of General Interest -- June 2000
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Contact: Craig Chamberlain, News Editor, (217) 333-2894; [email protected]

CHILD WELFARE

Elian got attention needed by thousands of kids in public's care

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- For months the media and the nation focused on the fate of a single Cuban-born ward of the state named Elian and learned about every aspect of his life.

Yet the public knows next to nothing about another half-million children in its collective care, says John Poertner, interim director of the Children and Family Research Center (CFRC) in the School of Social Work at the University of Illinois. There's almost no information gathered systematically on the wards of the 50 states' child-welfare systems, even regarding schooling or health, Poertner said.

And while many were dismayed by the use of force in removing Elian Gonzalez from his relatives' home in Miami, "in Illinois and across the country, force is used in the public interest every day" in protecting children, though rarely at the point of a gun, Poertner noted.

"Every day, citizens concerned about the safety of children report suspected abuse and neglect," asking the state to intervene if necessary, he said. "These citizens, who wanted the government to take action, may not have realized that in protecting a child, force is used. And child-welfare officials, like many of us, are as ambivalent about the use of force in child protection as we are about the use of force in the reuniting of Elian with his father."

But since the public is reconciled to this kind of intervention, it needs to be prepared to accept the responsibility, Poertner said. "We've established by public policy that we're going to intervene in the lives of families where kids are suffering abuse and neglect. So if we've taken that on as an obligation, then we need to follow that obligation through," he said.

Following through means that states need to know more about the children under their care, Poertner said. Illinois is leading the way in many respects, Poertner noted, because it has a center such as the CFRC. The center was set up, as an outgrowth of a lawsuit, to report on outcomes for the children under the care of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. As a result, "we have data on safety that I believe no other state has," as well as data on rates of adoption and permanent placements with families, he said.

But Illinois and every other state lack a means of collecting the data on education and health that Poertner thinks is so essential. The lack of it "is something of a hidden national scandal," he believes. There is evidence, he said, that the children who come into care are often well behind their peers in school, often developmentally delayed, and have more health and mental health problems.

With better information, which the center is starting to collect, Poertner sees an opportunity to work with local networks of agencies that serve these children. Right now, those agencies have no way of knowing where they should concentrate their efforts, he said. "What we have in Illinois right now is a real opportunity ... to solve some of the other problems that have really never been attacked."

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