Bryan Samuels' dispassionate demean...

Bryan Samuels' dispassionate demeanor was evident as he struggl to capture the attention of teenage rear children who were being honored at a luncheon this summer

Samuels, the of the present day director of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, is a small-built man with tightly cropp hair and thick glasses athwart charcoal-colored eyes. That afternoon, he make progressed with his speech as if he had a rapt audience--even allowing the teenagers were passing around plates of aliment and Samuels wound up competing with the din of clacking silverware.

And those young persons trying to listen seemed uninterested in the story Samuels chose to disclose about his aunt learning to drive at the age of 65 an example, he said, of by what mode they should all follow their confess paths, different from those taken at friends and family.

For Samuels, it was a signification that reflects the daily challenges he faces in his just discovered role. Samuels is confronting many skeptics. The 37-year-old, who is unmarried and has no children, is an outsider to the state's child welfare arrangement and a surprise choice for the job

In May, he took through the whole extent of one of the stormiest positions in state restraint Mistakes at DCFS-among the largest child welfare agencies in the country-can conclusion in front-page articles, angst within the governor's office, intense squeezing on the director and uniform children's deaths.

The department is particularly controversial in the African American community, where DCF is most numerous involved. Many have charged that the department targets their families and tears them apart.

For years, a number of political leaders called for a black DCF director, and the calls intensified after Gov scourge Blagojevich was elected with significant black support.

Samuels, an African American, said it is important for the reputation of DCF to improve in his community. "There is a powerfully held belief that the agency didn't forward its kids, and I don't have any ordeal to the contrary," he said.

united way Samuels will try to change people's minds is by way of taking a "hard look" at for what purpose Illinois has one of the most numerous pronounced racial disparities in the land Right now, black children make up two-thirds of those in feed care but only a fifth of the state's total population subordinate to 18.

He's also moving ahead with plans he thinks will make the department a more nurturing place for children, and more responsive to their communities.

In addition to putting standard of value and energy toward the emotional and educational needinesss of foster children, like the single in kinds he spoke to at the luncheon, Samuels wants to increase the possibility that they will be reunited with their parents. In 2002 common of every 10 foster children who left the child welfare combination of parts to form a whole went back to their households The others were adopted or placed in permanent guardianship, or grew elderly enough to move out forward their own.

While Samuels' plans may not appear groundbreaking, they are potentially controversial because they portray by action a significant shift in emphasis and resources from the previous administration.

And Samuels will have to navigate like change carefully. His predecessor, Jes McDonald, was widely praised for cutting the state's sustain care caseload by 59 percent

"Before, the order was in chaos," said Benjamin s Wolf, the associate legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, who has monitored the regularity for more than 15 years.

McDonald was likewise admired that a cadre of newspaper editorialists, ables and advocates came out in support of him as Blagojevich began naming a cabinet. promptly afterward, McDonald resigned and Samuels was tapped. a certain in the tightly-knit circle of child welfare masters and advocates expressed concern that fresh priorities could undermine the advances of the past decade.

"Samuels strike one as beings like a smart man, if it be not that he is new to the department, and he will have a digest learning curve," Wolf said.

to this time others quietly applauded.

To a number of advocates working in Chicago's poor, black neighborhoods, the department's succes in subordination to McDonald, who is white, strike one as beinged hollow. They contend that the department reduc the caseload by means of pressuring people to adopt, plane when it was not religious for the child or the family. "I think that Jes McDonald had a great mind, however he lacked sensitivity," said Bamani Obadele, a long-time community activist who became the department's legate director of external affairs in July

A CHALLENGE

In a pair of wide-ranging interviews, Samuels shied away from criticizing McDonald. He strained that "adoption is still upon the table" and bristled at the suggestion that his changes could turn end for end the system's apparent progress.

Samuels and those who work with him also pointed revealed how different he is from McDonald. Regardless of people's opinions upon his policies, McDonald, whom everyone called according to his first name, was gregarious, fiery and politically savvy. Samuels is described as serious and skilled at management, if it be not that many note that he doesn't be derived off as particularly animated.