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Child Welfare

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Intact Family Recovery

Illinois Collaboration on Youth (ICOY) seeks to build a collaborative case management model that effectively partners with substance use agencies and child welfare providers to enhance the recovery of individuals, the safety of children, and stability of families.

Capacity Building and Innovation in Child Welfare

ICOY serves as lead Grantee for the Illinois Intact Family Recovery (IFR) projects serving regions Northern (NIL-IFR | 2017-2022), Eastern (EIL-IFR | 2019-2024), and the newly awarded Metro-East of Illinois (MEIL-IFR | 2022-2027).

Intact Family Services (IFS) offers child welfare agencies with substance use disorder (SUD) treatment and intact family support increasing the family's safety in staying together and the resources needed for parental drug abuse recovery that may have affected the family. ICOY was an RPG 4 grantee and is currently a recipient of the RPG 6 grant. The objective of the RPG 7 project is to address the disproportionality faced by families of color in the child welfare system in the Metro-East area of Illinois.

The IL-IFR program is an evaluation-based initiative that engages 15 local and state organizations serving 27 counties in Illinois providing co-case management support through a Recovery Coordinator, who supports the family in their recovery process, and an Intact Worker, who supports the safety and stability of children and their families.

Program Objectives

  • Increase the Well-being, Permanency, and Safety of Children
  • Improve Family Recovery and Stability
  • Increase System-Level Capacity and Effectiveness

Goals & Results

  • To display the positive impact that Intact Family Recovery services combined with Intact Family Services can provide for increased outcomes for substance-involved parents and their children.
  • Recovery Coordinators are successfully referring and helping IFR clients get admitted to substance use treatment quicker and assisting parents to stay abstinent post-initial treatment.

What We Know So Far

  • Participants report that the IFR program links them to needed SUD and mental health treatment, parenting classes, and other resources.
  • Participants' children experience decreased disruptive behaviors.
  • Parents receiving IFR show greater improvements in Safety and Permanency by:
    • Decreasing problem behaviors
    • Decreasing trauma and mental health symptoms
    • Fewer substantiated maltreatment recurrences
    • Fewer out-of-home placements

Partners in the IL-IFR Programs Include

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