Survivors of foster care abuse often focus on the person who hurt them. That is natural. A civil claim, though, usually centers on a different party: the agency that put the child in that home. And it comes down to three questions about that agency's conduct.
You do not need to have reported the abuse, and nobody needs to have been charged for those questions to matter. Attorney Ervin Nevitt, a partner at Coplan + Crane, reviews these cases. He holds Illinois bar registration 6319808 and was admitted in 2014.
Question one: what did the agency know about the home?
A foster placement is made by an agency that is supposed to have checked it. What information did it have about the home and the people in it before the child arrived?
Question two: what checks did it make?
The agency's job was to look before it placed a child. A claim examines what checks were actually done.
Question three: what did it do when a concern was raised?
Concerns about a placement do not always lead to action. A claim looks at what the agency did when someone raised one, and what it should have done.
Together, these ask what DCFS or a licensed private agency knew, what it should have known, and what it did. The answers usually come from institutional records, which is why these cases are built from records rather than from a complete personal account.
Which agency, and which court
These claims are usually brought against DCFS or a licensed private agency, not only against the individual. Negligent placement most often carries them, though several theories usually run together, and which fits depends on your facts.
The responsible body may be the State, through DCFS, or a private agency under contract with DCFS. Identifying which one made and supervised the placement is the first thing to check. A DCFS placement leads to a claim against the State in the Illinois Court of Claims, with its own filing requirements and damages limits. A private agency placement leads to a claim against that agency in the ordinary courts.
Common Questions Around Agency Responsibility
I never reported it. A civil claim requires no police report, no charge, and no conviction. Most people we speak with never reported.
Can my identity be protected? Steps can be taken to protect your identity in the court record. We explain them before anything is filed.
I do not remember everything. That is ordinary. The records do much of the work.
What happens when you reach out
A question sets nothing in motion. You speak with a person, not a form, and you do not have to describe what happened. We look into which institution was responsible, what it knew, what records exist, and whether a claim can still be brought, at no cost to you.
We tell you plainly what is possible. If you decide not to go ahead, it ends there, and what you told us stays confidential. If you go ahead, we carry the filings, deadlines, records, and the institution's insurers.
Call (708) 671-6858 for a free, confidential case review or visit https://survivorsofabuseil.com/foster-care-abuse-lawyer-il/.
