As state child welfare investigators probed allegations of abuse in the Joliet Township home where 17-month-old Semaj Crosby would later be found dead, their supervisor was launching a contest that awarded $100 gift cards to the two workers who closed the most cases in a month, according to agency interviews and internal emails examined by the Tribune.
The 3rd place winner would get a $50 gift card.
Evidence of the Joliet office contest emerged as the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services faces mounting criticism from state lawmakers that it is quickly closing abuse and neglect investigations even when basic information has not been gathered and children are left in harm’s way.
While the dollar amount of the Joliet contest was relatively low, DCFS Director George Sheldon told the Tribune that the competition was improper.
"Offering financial incentives like that I think is an inappropriate step," Sheldon said in an interview Friday. "I think the intentions were good but the way they handled it wasn’t."
State Rep. Mary Flowers, D-Chicago, who this week chaired a legislative hearing on failures of DCFS investigations, reacted sharply when told of the contest by the Tribune, calling it "unethical."
Flowers called for the agency’s inspector general to conduct an immediate investigation into the contest, including the children and families who were affected by cases that may have been closed prematurely.
David Jackson, Gary Marx and Duaa Eldeib
A new report describes a litany of failures by state child welfare investigators who opened at least 10 investigations into abuse and neglect in the home of 17-month-old Semaj Crosby before her death in April.
As investigators for the Department of Children and Family Services walked through the…
A new report describes a litany of failures by state child welfare investigators who opened at least 10 investigations into abuse and neglect in the home of 17-month-old Semaj Crosby before her death in April.
As investigators for the Department of Children and Family Services walked through the…
(David Jackson, Gary Marx and Duaa Eldeib)
"Children’s lives could have been put at risk because of this bad behavior," Flowers said. "This is not a game. These families are in need of help and services — they are not to be played and toyed with. That’s not the purpose of DCFS. That is not what they are paid for."
On Friday, DCFS released a new report describing a litany of failures by investigators who opened at least 10 investigations into abuse and neglect in Semaj’s home during the two years before her death. Some of those cases were closed within days, and most were "unfounded due to insufficient evidence," the report shows.
Sheldon said he does not believe the push to close cases quickly played a role in Semaj’s case but said he understands why people "may have that perception."
"We’ve got to aggressively pursue these cases with a sense of urgency, but I want to make sure that message isn’t misinterpreted to cut corners," Sheldon said. "I want to make sure that we don’t have unintended consequences. The first thing is to thoroughly investigate the case."
Read more stories
Senior Deputy Director Neil Skene told the Tribune that DCFS is reviewing whether to discipline any supervisors for the contest. The agency is preparing a notification to all staff warning against such incentives, Skene added.
It’s unclear whether any of the contest winners were involved in the numerous DCFS inquiries at the home where Semaj died.
The contest began in January, according to interviews and emails.
That month, DCFS Joliet office administrator Carolyn Travis sent two dozen frontline child protection investigators an email announcing a contest to reward the worker who closed the most abuse and neglect cases.
"CLOSING CASE CONTEST FOR JANUARY, AND WERE OFF," said the misspelled subject line of Travis’ email.
Attempts by the Tribune to reach Travis for comment were unsuccessful.
Travis sent contest updates to her investigators, marking them high importance. Two days after the first email, Travis sent another on Jan. 6 with the subject line: "JANUARY CONTEST CASE COUNT AS OF TODAY HOW MANY HAS BEEN CLOSED SO FAR".
On Jan. 26, Travis sent an email listing the number of cases each worker had closed, with the subject line: "CONTEST — CLOSED CASES SO FAR FOR THE MONTH OF JANUARY 2017- 3 BUSINESS LEFT".
Earlier this month, a Tribune investigation disclosed a separate DCFS program in Cook County called "Blue Star" that offered overtime pay instead of comp time to child protection investigators who significantly boost the percentage of cases they closed within 14 days.
State law gives DCFS 60 days to complete investigations unless supervisors grant extensions because medical and police reports or other critical information is pending. But starting last fall under Blue Star, DCFS tripled the percentage of Cook County abuse and neglect investigations closed within 14 days.
The closure rate rose from about 5 percent per month to 15 percent by March 2017, a Tribune analysis of DCFS data found. Agency goals called for that percentage to double again for at least some Cook County teams: 30 percent of investigations were expected to be closed within 14 days by March 2018, internal DCFS memos on Blue Star showed.
Sheldon has told the Tribune the goal of Blue Star was to help investigators focus on the most serious allegations of harm. But agency officials said they now are reviewing how Blue Star was communicated to workers and whether the case-closing goals are appropriate.
The Tribune also has reported on the shortcomings marring three other DCFS investigations; in those cases, children were beaten or starved to death by caretakers. Investigators did not interview key witnesses, the Tribune found, missed obvious signs of abuse and failed to gather medical reports and other evidence.
The new DCFS report on Semaj’s home details similar investigative shortfalls, and provides no indication that DCFS developed safety plans to protect children there — even after hotline calls alleging that a 17-month-old boy was extensively bruised in February, and a 3-year-old girl allegedly was molested in March.
In an interview with the Tribune, Taja Price, a Joliet restaurant worker whose 17-month-old son was the alleged victim of the February beating, told the Tribune that she warned DCFS.
"I said, you need to investigate that house — they are beating kids at that house," Price said.
Her son had stayed in the Joliet Township home for a few days to visit his father. He came home to Price with bruises on his leg, according to the new DCFS report and photographs that Price provided to the Tribune.
Price took the child to a hospital, and a nurse called the DCFS hotline. But Price said a DCFS investigator talked to her only briefly.
"I’m like, something’s going on at the house," Price said. "I said, somebody needs to investigate and check on these babies. If (my son) is being abused, the rest of them are too."
She said she never was told the outcome of the case.
"They did not tell me it was indicated or not," Price said. "They never told me anything. I haven’t gotten no paperwork from them."
Three months later, according to the report released Friday, the investigation into the bruises on Price’s son remains open. The March molestation charge was unfounded because of insufficient evidence, although welts and bruises were confirmed.
dyjackson@chicagotribune.com
garyjmarx@chicagotribune.com
deldeib@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @poolcar4
Twitter @garyjmarx
Twitter @deldeib
Our editors found this article on this site using Google and regenerated it for our readers.
