Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform > The Troubled Teen Industry

Suicide at ChildServ

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Ursus:
One of the services that ChildServ offers is that of "finding new homes" for kids. Here's a short thread from Adoption.com, started by someone who was adopted from there when they still went by the name of Lake Bluff/Chicago Homes for Children:

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Question Looking for Lake Bluff/Chicago Homes for Children Adoptees

Polarbear1959 · 03-31-2005, 11:22 AM
Hi,
I'm new here. But, I hope to be a frequent visitor. I was adopted in 1960 through Lake Bluff/Chicago Homes for Children. I am looking for other people that were adopted through this agency. My story is a long one, so I won't post it, at least not right now.
The way my adoption was handled, legally, wouldn't happen today. I'm just curious whether other people had adoptions that were a little shady. I've thought about going to Oprah or Dr. Phil with this. But, it would absolutely crush my Mom's spirit and break her heart if I went into the public forum with my story. So, for now, only a small portion of the world will know what really happened to me.
I welcome emails from anyone with a story about this agency. Thanx for helping me. . .
Jeancarolynppk · 03-31-2005, 11:42 AM
Dear Jean, I personally did not have a "shady" adoption, but the era and day you are speaking of, most lawyers and doctors (not all, but quite a few) treated this area of unwed mothers as a baby mill. How do I know this? My amother was a social worker who started a social services department in one of the hospitals in the town I lived in. She was blackballed from working after she quit. She put an end to these types of adoptions going on in the hospital and made them use agencies and have things on the up and up. She pissed off a lot of doctors and lawyers who were having quite a lucrative and successful business going on at the exploitations of the poor women in distress. They didn't know they had hired a woman who was the adoptive mother to two children. This was in 1968-69. So to say when you were born, this is nothing new or shocking. Lots of people here will help you on any part of the journey you are on. Welcome and best of luck to find what you are looking for.

Carolyncrhughes · 05-24-2009, 06:16 PM
I was adopted by the same place in 1971, but they don't exist anymore. Trying to locate my birth parents. Any suggestions where else I can start? I wonder if my adoption was shady. There is so much I don't know.

-Carson Hughes

none-ya:
Sorry Ursus, I ment NOT pushed.(my bad) But the reason I asked was,if they did a post mortem blood screen for med levels. It could further implicate the program.

Ursus:

--- Quote from: "none-ya" ---Sorry Ursus, I ment NOT pushed.(my bad) But the reason I asked was,if they did a post mortem blood screen for med levels. It could further implicate the program.
--- End quote ---
Ah. Your comment makes sense now... And you bring up a very good point. I imagine if Caitlin Lee was a ward of the state (perhaps due to being considered to be a danger to herself), as she apparently was, then she quite probably was on meds.

Cuz those kinds of "medical intervention" are currently stipulations / recommendations "the state" frequently invokes ... with regard to "problem behavior" in these overly Big-Pharma-friendly times. Caitlin is quite possibly merely a victim of trickle-down theory, in Illinois's attempts to stimulate the local pharmaceutical industry.  :twofinger:

none-ya:
But if she was hit by a train,the state (I'm thinkin') would not "waste" resources on an autopsy.Is there no way to find out how she died? It had to make more news somewhere.

Ursus:

--- Quote from: "none-ya" ---But if she was hit by a train,the state (I'm thinkin') would not "waste" resources on an autopsy.Is there no way to find out how she died? It had to make more news somewhere.
--- End quote ---
Well... here's another article which addresses those kinds of details.

Apparently, Caitlin Lee appears to have intentionally seated herself on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway tracks. At least, according to reporter Bill Bird.

Moreover, at the time of the below publication, "toxicological testing of [her] blood" was incomplete but presumably in progress.

A relative and a friend of Caitlin, who was also enrolled in one of ChildServ's programs around the same time period, saw fit to comment...

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Naperville Sun · A CHICAGO SUN-TIMES Publication
Girl killed by train in Naperville was an 'at-risk' teen

BY BILL BIRD wbird@stmedianetwork.com November 1, 2011 10:18PM
Updated: January 1, 2012 1:45AM

The teenager who died last weekend after being struck by a train north of downtown Naperville has been identified as a resident of a nearby home for troubled adolescent girls.

And according to an official of the agency overseeing that facility, the teen at the time of her death was about to be moved to another home, one designed to provide "a more secure and structured" environment for her.

Caitlin Lee, 15, was killed instantly about 11:40 p.m. Saturday. Police said she apparently seated herself on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway tracks and was hit by an eastbound Metra commuter train, about 500 feet east of the pedestrian crossing near Fourth Avenue and Loomis Street.

Chief Deputy DuPage County Coroner Charlie Dastych on Tuesday listed the cause of Lee's death as "massive traumatic injuries" sustained after being struck by the train. While toxicological testing of Lee's blood remains incomplete, Dastych said the manner of death "at this point in time ... appears intentional."

She is the fifth person to be killed on the train tracks in Naperville in the past five months.

Lee since June had lived with three other adolescent girls in a two-story house on North Sleight Street. The home is operated by ChildServ, a 117-year-old "multidisciplinary" network that "reaches children and families facing adversity" in DuPage, Cook and Lake counties, according to the mission statement posted on the agency's website.

ChildServ works with 3,100 children and families annually, the website indicated. Its programs "deliver immediate intervention, protection or shelter when needed, and provide longer-term guidance and support to help children grow into healthy and thriving adults."

ChildServ also operates homes on Iroquois Avenue in Naperville and Main Street in Lisle.

Millicent Collier, ChildServ's director of marketing and communications, said Tuesday officials of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services referred Lee's family to ChildServ.

"She came to us with a troubled past," Collier said of Lee. "She had a history of risky behaviors that were taking place at an earlier age," problems that included "running away," Collier said.

ChildServ officials in mid-September concluded Lee needed "a more secure and structured" way of living than the Sleight Street home could offer, Collier said. "We were actually working with DCFS to move her to a different facility, where she would be in a more structured environment."

"But any mention of her being suicidal certainly was not a part of her history. In our homes, to our knowledge, we don't have clients who have that level of psychiatric issues."

Workers assigned to ChildServ's facilities monitor their clients' movements, but often do not realize when their charges have left the premises without permission. Naperville police are routinely called to the Sleight Street address to aid in the search for runaways.

Police Sgt. Gregg Bell said officers and members of the Naperville Fire Department thus far this year have answered 417 calls for emergency service at the Sleight Street home. While some calls stem from battery and other comparatively minor crimes, "maybe 75 to 80 percent of them involve a missing person or a runaway," Bell said.

Police and fire employees "try to work closely" with ChildServ, Bell said. Calls for emergency assistance over the years have "probably grown more due to the type of residents they sometimes have in there," he said.

Bell stressed, however, that likening the Sleight Street facility to a typical home or neighborhood "would be an unfair parallel to draw. These are young kids who have had difficulties in their lives ... and have different needs than what you would find in your average household."

Collier said when ChildServ clients find themselves placed in one of the homes, "it's a new environment, and they're trying to get back to where they came from. Unfortunately, this particular teen was still in those early stages of wanting to run back to where she came from," Collier said of Lee.

Police records indicated officers this year have been most often called to help search for the same two or three teens who have run away from the Sleight Street home. Lee did not appear to be one of them.

"I cannot say factually that (staff members) were routinely calling the police" because of Lee being a runaway, Collier said. "The police know the staff, and it's really more of a partnership, to help us work with the girls and get them back on track."

"In this particular case, the staff did follow the necessary procedures," Collier said of Lee's leaving the house. "They handled that accordingly."

"It's really a tragedy that the process just wasn't moving fast enough to get her to that environment she needed to be in before something like this could happen," Collier said of Lee. "But even so, ChildServ was delivering its mission with full diligence and working with the other community service partners," including the DCFS and police, she said.

"One death is certainly more than what really should be," Collier said. "It's one too many."

"The problem is, it's bigger than any one provider,” Collier said. "We're taking the stand that this is a true indicator that our social system has some value, but there certainly is room for improvement, so that we can prevent these types of occurrences."

"The feeling is, the system has failed Caitlin."


© 2011 Sun-Times Media, LLC.

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