DCFS investigators competed for $100 gift cards for closing most cases

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-dcfs-contest-met-20170526-story.html

George Sheldon, director of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, answers questions about his department’s fiscal year 2018 budget request before the Senate Appropriations Committee on May 3, 2017, at the Capitol in Springfield. (Rich Saal / AP)

SPRINGFIELD, IL (David Jackson, Gary Marx, and Duaa, Eldeib- Chicago Tribune.  Please click on the link for the full story.  Here is an excerpt below.)

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.

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 Crosby’s home (A 17 month old infant who was abused to the point of death in the Joliet office’s jusidiction) 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.

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.