State's budget cuts will hurt vulnerable kids

The suburban people who have dedicated their careers to fighting for children inflicted with the cruelest pains trudged into the city Wednesday afternoon to fight for themselves.

"We'll be another one of those groups standing by the governor," sighs Mark Parr, executive director of the Children's Advocacy Center of North and Northwest Cook County, noting the parade of mental health officials, caregivers for the disabled, drug and alcohol counselors and others pleading their cases as they try to stay afloat in the state's tsunami of budget cuts.

The center in Hoffman Estates, like those in Lake, DuPage, Kane, McHenry and most Illinois counties, help children who have been sexually and physically abused. Always keeping a child's best interests in mind, the centers coordinate the array of police officers, social workers, prosecutors, medical staff and others, while providing counseling to the children and their families.

When the federal government slashed funding about 29 percent last year, and the United Way had to cut its contribution, the Children's Advocacy Center in Hoffman Estates weathered the storm, Parr says. Unless legislators restore the funds in the new budget, some centers across the state will close, and the Hoffman Estate center's funding from the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services will be cut 100 percent, resulting in a $250,000 gap in a budget of about $1.1 million, Parr says.

"The level and depth of service we provide our families will be impacted," Parr says, acknowledging that some of the 15 full-time and three part-time professionals who work in his office will have to be let go.

Sitting in the same room where she played the board game "Sorry" with a young victim of sexual abuse the day before, the center's clinical director, Bonnie Brunette, says advocacy centers save money by treating problems before they get worse and more costly for taxpayers. It's difficult to prove, but the center likely has prevented problems such as drug abuse, crimes, the splintering of families or suicide.

"If it wasn't for that center, I don't know what would happen to us," says a Bartlett mom, whose family ended up at the center against their will three years ago after their 9-year-old son was sexually abused by an older half-sibling, who remains in prison.

"I was bawling my eyes out. I didn't want anyone to talk with him," says the mom. She wanted to protect her son, who was scared "to leave mom or go to school," Brunette says.

"He wouldn't sleep alone. I had to literally peel him off me as he was screaming, 'Please don't leave me! Please don't leave me!'" his mom remembers. "It was like he was in preschool."

Devastated by what had happened, the entire family got counseling from the center. Counselors treated the young victim for a year.

"He's just a changed kid now," says the mom, who, along with her son and husband, helped raise funds for the center through the annual Champions for Children Charity Walk. "He's just a normal boy."

While the center is known for crisis intervention, "for some of our families, it's a weekly or daily thing," adds Christine DiGangi, a forensic interviewer and counselor at the center. A warehouse of information, the center often sends people to other agencies that deal with domestic violence, substance abuse or other problems. That could change, too.

"Not only are we experiencing these (cuts), but so are the places we send them, too," Parr says.

On call round-the-clock, the center saw 523 kids last year. Without the funding, Parr wonders "exactly what level of services we can provide."

Could the cuts mean that some kids will be told to come back tomorrow or even turned away without getting the help they need?

"That's so foreign to me to even think about that," Parr says, unable to answer. "I'm not ready to go there."

Let's hope legislators find a way to keep Parr from making that trip.