'93 suit credited for changes at DCFS

In her nine years at the state Division of Child and Family Services, Wendy Cole has seen positive changes in the state's child-welfare system, from the way caseworkers are trained to increased participation in individual cases.

Quite simply, Cole said, the system is better today than it was when she started in August 1998.

Cole, a caseworker with Child Protective Services, largely attributes the changes to a 1993 federal lawsuit that has forced broad reform to the state's child-welfare system. A federal judge approved a settlement Thursday to the 14-year-old court battle between the state and the National Center for Youth Law, the California-based child advocacy organization that filed the class-action case after being contacted by concerned child advocates in Utah.

Negotiating a settlement has meant creating a standardized practice model to guide daily operations, meeting strict milestones outlined in court agreements and increasing transparency within the agency.

"I think that the practice model has really helped us come a long way," Cole said, praising, in particular, increased and more thorough training methods and the inclusion of family members and community partners in particular cases.

"(We're) having the family involved, actually engaging with the family, getting so we're not such an awful, scary entity," she said.

The case was filed bearing the name of a young boy, "David C.," who, along with his brothers, was taken into DCFS custody and placed in foster care. The boy's older brother died in their foster home nine months later.

For well over a decade, DCFS has operated under the strict scrutiny of a court-appointed monitor. Under the terms of the settlement, that active monitoring will end this week. The case will remain dormant until Dec. 31, 2008, when it will be permanently dismissed if all parties agree that DCFS has upheld the terms of the exit agreement.

The agency has pledged, however, to fulfill that agreement until 2010 to show its commitment to maintaining a good system, DCFS director Duane Betournay said.

"We feel like the work is just beginning," he said after Thursday's brief court hearing. "It's never been our intention to just rest at good ... We think we're an excellent system now, but I think if you look at us two years from now, we'll be even better."

Since the lawsuit was filed, DCFS's budget has more than tripled, from $41 million to more than $153 million, and the number of caseworkers has grown from 282 to 612. The agency fields more than 20,000 complaints of child abuse and neglect each year and currently oversees about 2,600 foster children.