I work for DCFS

I work for DCFS.

For many, that conjures up all sorts of negative images. There’s the stories of the mom who spanks her kid in the grocery store and DCFS comes to investigate. Or on the other extreme, there are the stories of children experiencing abuse but its not “bad enough” or there are no visible marks so the kids stay in their abusive homes. Then there’s the foster mom who takes in eight kids just for the cash. When you hear “DCFS”, you might envision over-worked, under-paid, burnt out workers who just don’t care anymore. Tragically there is some truth to all of these stereotypes.

However, as I’m becoming more acquainted with the system, I am enthralled with the “ideal”. In a perfect world and a perfect system, the intentions of DCFS are beautiful, good, and dare-I-say-it, Christ-like. The big word in child welfare in Illinois is “reunification”. The goal of child welfare is to take the child out of the home for as short a period of time as possible so mom and/or dad can get their stuff together and then parent and child can be “reunified”.

There are lots of beautiful words out there and I would like to add that one to the list. Christ is all about reunification. Christ experienced suffering and death so that we might be reunified to the Father. And as we walk through this life, we become closer to reunification with who we were before the fall of humankind. Unification is at the center of God’s heart. He is in unity with the three persons within himself and longs for this oneness for and with us. For our marriages, our relationships, our cities, our churches, our world. There was a time, a short time, when unity was the way of life. And all of history has been a journey back to that place, back to reunification.

In its perfect state, “the system” has such potential. It is intended to care for and protect children and to provide families to come along side and assist in the redemption of other families, using the tools of kindness and dignity. I’m not sure where along the line things got screwed up. But I am here to say that the system works. Not in its fullness or all of the time. But in individual families and individual lives, redemption and reunification are happening. And I am convinced that if His spirit and heart is present in DCFS, He is weaving His goodness and hope into all of the broken systems of the world.