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In the traditional family preservation model, a family's integrity is preserved by keeping children in the care of their immediate or extended families. Family reunification has involved safely returning children to the custody of their families after a period of foster care. However, families are not preserved solely by family members maintaining close physical proximity to their members. Most families develop strong emotional and kinship bonds that perpetuate the history and culture of the family. Therefore, when rethinking the concept of family preservation services, it is useful to think in terms of activities that protect a family's history and culture; preserve its familial, cultural, and ethnic identity and connections; and safeguard the kinship bonds between children and their "psychological family" and culture of origin. In this context, a child's removal and placement into another family can be an effort to preserve the family, as is the case in coparenting. Coparenting involves planned and focused activities to create a parenting partnership in which the child's family and the foster family share a commitment to ensure the well-being of the child while preserving the child's emotional connections to family and culture. Coparenting is well-suited for facilitating family restorations, overcoming barriers of cross-race and cross-cultural placements, responding to child neglect, and preparing a child for permanent placement with another family. (MM)

The process of reforming human services involves a true understanding of the meaning of child-centered, family-focused, community-based services, and the creation of the system that these concepts demand. The concept of "child-centered services" acknowledges that children are entitled to have their basic needs met in a manner that guarantees maximum opportunity for personal fulfillment and achievement. In order to visualize a child-centered, family-focused, community-based human service system, one must look at concentric circles in which the child and his or her full potential rest in the middle, surrounded by the family, the neighborhood and community, and the state and country. The system must be integrated at the local level, using an approach that removes categorical restrictions and combines funding from a variety of sources. This approach could bring together various state human service agencies for the purpose of integration, collaboration, and coordination. In this scenario, state agencies would become partners with local community members, facilitating goals concerning well-being and strategies established by the community. State agencies would lend knowledge, skill, and expertise to local community efforts and activities aimed at promoting child and family well-being, and would advocate on behalf of, and in partnership with, local communities at the state and federal level. Exploring these possibilities can help create a human service system worthy of its consumers. (MM)

This booklet presents licensing standards for day and night care centers as updated by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services with the aid of a federal grant from the Office of Child Development to the State of Illinois. These standards provide broader coverage in existing areas as well as expanded coverage for school age children, transportation, infant care, special children and nutrition. The standards and compliance requirements in this document are designed to be brief, concise, understandable and enforceable, with as little subjective interpretation as possible on the part of all who read and use them. The standards also reflect administrative experience with the revised 1971 licensing standards. Standards are grouped under the following broad headings: philosophy; licensure, organization and administration; personnel; services to children; plant and equipment; and records and reports. The Child Care Act of 1969 is included in this document. (MS)

This handbook outlines essential information for foster parents under these basic headings: (1) legal rights and responsibilities of children, parents and foster parents; (2) recruitment, licensing, training, and evaluation of foster homes; (3) placement and removal of foster children; (4) payments and expenses; (5) medical care; (6) confidentiality and family contracts; (7) agency and community resources; (8) education and religion; and (9) complaints and grievances about agency services and foster homes. Appendices include information related to foster home standards, study and evaluation; and lists of the responsibilities and duties of the juvenile court, guardianship administrator, field/casework staff, and foster parent or custodial institution. (ED)

This booklet contains the licensing standards for day and night care homes established by the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. A day care home is described as a place away from home where a child can feel cared for and cared about. Standards have been set up to provide a safe, secure day care home with responsive and caring adults, and the regulations are divided into the following major areas: licensing, records and reports, home facilities, the day care family, services to children, children with special needs, school age children, night care and infants and toddlers. (MS)

Based on 24 tables of data, this report provides a detailed account of the scope of the problem of child abuse and neglect in the State of Illinois in 1987, and the actions taken by the Department of Children and Family Services to protect the state's vulnerable children. In fiscal year 1987, the number of children reported as abused and neglected rose to 91,723, a number representing a 30.2 percent increase over the previous year. Measures taken to address the problem involve the child abuse hotline, the state's central register, and investigations of reports of suspected child abuse and neglect. The report also covers results of investigations regarding status of reports, fatalities, sexual abuse, perpetrators, and service delivery. Means of prevention are discussed. Members of the Statewide Citizens' Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect are listed. (RH)

This statistical report aims to convey a clear picture of the scope, nature, and seriousness of the child abuse problem in Illinois for fiscal year 1985. Because special efforts were made in regard to child sexual abuse, this problem is treated as a separate category in the report. Discussed in six sections are data concerning (1) the nature of the child abuse problem; (2) the magnitude of the problem; (3) efforts to confront the problem, including the Child Abuse Hotline and the State Central Register, as well as investigations of reports of suspected child abuse and neglect; (4) results of investigations, particularly concerning the finding status of reports, fatalities, sexual abuse reports, and perpetrators; (5) accomplishments in fiscal year 1985; and goals for fiscal year 1986. The report includes 24 tables of data and a list, with addresses, of members of the Statewide Citizens' Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect. (RH)