Illinois DCFS visitation ban may cause lasting harm

“Beginning Friday, DCFS will allow in-person supervised visits every other week, with a plan to transition to regular, weekly visits in mid-July. But advocates, including Cook County Public Defender Amy Campanelli, seek an immediate end to the policy, which they say has already caused irreparable harm to parents and children.

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But the policy contradicted federal guidance, which strongly discouraged state child welfare agencies from issuing “blanket court orders reducing or suspending family time.” Whether it helped prevent the spread of the virus is unclear.

“Their policy doesn’t even make sense,” said Erin Miles Cloud, co-director of the Movement for Family Power, an advocacy group. “It wasn’t even that foster parents couldn’t have children around other children or family. It was simply taking children away from their biological families.”

Foster sees the visitation policy as just the latest example of racism in a child welfare system that targets Black families and whose primary tool, advocates said, is the separation of parents and children.”