When children are removed from their homes because of maltreatment, the goal of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) is to return them to a loving, safe, stable, and permanent home as soon as possible. Unfortunately, the most recent statistics show that 47.3% of children and youth who entered substitute care from DCFS in 2018 were not placed in a permanent home within three years, and the permanency rate is worse for Black children.

This webpage presents work from a program of research on subsidized guardianship, one rarely used but promising permanency option that might help both increase permanency rates and reduce racial disparity. In subsidized guardianship, a family member, such as a grandmother or aunt, typically becomes the child's permanent caregiver, but the child's birthparents retain many of their parental rights. It is an alternative to adoption. Adoption is the best option for many families, but it requires termination of parental rights, which can be traumatic for children and families. Typically, DCFS provides subsidies to support the family's care of the child, but guardianship can also be a permanency option even if families do not qualify for subsidies or choose not to pursue them.

This was a team effort of the Children and Family Research Center, the Translational Research Team of DCFS' Office of Research and Child Well-Being, and several students and volunteers from the School of Social Work. This research was supported by the Office of the Vice-Chancellor for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign through its Call to Action to Address Racism & Social Injustice Research Program and by funding by DCFS to the Translational Research Team of the Office of Research and Child Well-Being.

The research assesses both professionals' and caregivers' experiences and opinions about guardianship and adoption, and it explores racial factors that may affect the use of guardianship. We collected interview and survey data from permanency professionals and from caregivers who have had at least one Black child in substitute care with the goal of becoming that child's permanent caregiver. The team is producing a series of reports, research briefs, presentations, and articles presenting results from the study. These products are available below. We will update it periodically. If you have questions about the research, please email Ted Cross at tpcross@illinois.edu.

The current work on guardianship builds on considerable earlier work by the Children and Family Research Center on this permanency option. This earlier work includes the program evaluation report from the pioneering Illinois Subsidized Guardianship Waiver Demonstration and studies of post-guardianship services.