CHARLES P. GOLBERT JUVENILE DIVISION Puble Guardian 2048 W-OGDEN AVENUE ‘Floor (CHICAGO, ILLINOIS eoet2 PHONE: 3143-000 FAX: G2) 43-5129 ADULT GUARDIANSiIP & ‘DoMrsTic RELATIONS DIVISIONS so wiwasiinerox cHicace, IIMS eae HONE G13 6-460 FAX: ane June 3, 2019 ver pbtigurdan arg VIA HAND DELIVERY Honorable Jorge L. Alonso United States District Court Northern District of Illinois 219 South Dearborn Street, Rm. 1908 Chicago, IL 60604 Re: BH. v, Smith, No. 88 C 5899 ~ “Interim Care Center” at Lawrence Hall Dear Judge Alonso: This is a follow up to my response to the parties’ agreement concerning placement of youth in DCES custody with significant emotional and behavioral health needs into Aunt Martha’s Interim Care Center, which I sent to you on May 28, 2019. Since the parties filed their ICC Agreement regarding Aunt Martha’s and I sent my response thereto, DCFS has started placing children at the ICC unit at Lawrence Hall. At least one client of my office is placed there. The ICC at Lawrence Hall is not addressed in the parties’ ICC Agreement, Based on the status hearing before Your Honor on May 8, 2019, I was under the impression that the ICC at Lawrence Hall was also on hold. (See May 8, 2019 Tr. p. 15 (the Lawrence Hall ICC “is not at this point ready to come on.... So we'll be following that"). In fact, Your Honor noted at the hearing that Lawrence Hall has had problems in the past and recent transitions do not mean that there is not institutional memory regarding what’s happened in the past specifically at Lawrence Hall. (Id. pp. 28-29), Most unfortunately, the roll out of the ICC at Lawrence Hall was at least as chaotic and dysfunctional as the roll out at Aunt Martha's that I described in my response. QmremuneFor all of the reasons set forth in my response to the parties’ ICC Agreement regarding Aunt Martha’s, Iam equally opposed to the ICC at Lawrence Hall. I am strongly opposed to “Interim Care Centers,” whether at Aunt Martha's, Lawrence Hall, or anywhere else. You might be aware that Lawrence Hall is being monitored by the Therapeutic Residential Performance Monitoring Initiative (TRPMI) due to serious problems there, some of which Your Honor alluded to during the status hearing. (Tr. pp. 28-29). I have been told that, TRPMI will be monitoring the ICC unit at Lawrence Hall. If so, that is the only good thing I have heard about the ICC. I urge that TRPMI monitor the ICC at Lawrence Hall, and also immediately start monitoring all of the floors at Aunt Martha’s. The B.H. consent decree is now 27 ¥2 years old, and the children deserve better. At this point, DCFS should have the placements and services needed for the children and youth in its care, which it promised to create 27 ’4 years ago when it entered into the consent decree. There is no excuse for DCFS’s reliance on “Interim Care Centers” for its most vulnerable children and youth 27 % years into the consent decree. As I explained in my response to the ICC at Aunt Martha’s, these ICCs are placing a tiny Band-Aid on the gushing wound that is DCFS’s severe and longstanding shortage of placements and services. Until DCFS addresses this in a serious ‘way, it will continue to find itself having to convert shelter and other space to place high-needs children who have been languishing for weeks and months BMN in locked psychiatric facilities. Notwithstanding the B.H. consent decree, the problem has actually gotten far worse in recent years, with DCFS losing some 500 beds over the past five years. Not surprisingly, the number of DCFS children languishing in locked psychiatric facilities BMN has skyrocketed during this, same period. Moreover, as explained in my response, not only does DCFS’s chronic and abysmal shortage of placements and services cause misery to the children and youth in its care, in violation of their civil and human rights, but it also unnecessarily costs the Illinois taxpayers millions of dollars every year. On behalf of my 6,000 child clients, all of whom are B.H. class members, I thank you for your attention to these concerns.Respectfully Submitted, Choke P brlorg Charles P. Golbert Cook County Public Guardian ce (via email): Hon. Geraldine Soat Brown, Special Master Shawn Eddings, General Counsel, DCFS Benjamin S. Wolf, ACLU Claire Steward, ACLU Heidi Dalenberg, Riley, Safer, Holmes, and Cancila Barbara Greenspan, Office of the Illinois Attomey General Marci White, MSW, Expert Mark Testa, Expert ‘Alpa Patel, Chief Deputy, OPG Janet Barnes, Asst. Deputy, OPG Brian Finley, Supervising Attorney, OPG