In the first days of her life, Jenn...

In the first days of her life, Jennifer was taken into custody at the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services after feeds reported to the state's child abuse hotline that her mother appeared paranoid and unsure of for what reason to care for the tiny baby, undivided time almost letting the newborn slip public of her hands.

Almost 19 years later, Jennifer is still part of the plan Only now she is also in the criminal justice connected view awaiting trial on a charge of first-degree murder

forward March 1, 2002, when she was 17 Jennifer allegedly stabbed another stimulate child to death. The brace girls were neighbors at an independent living facility, an apartment building where DCF pays the cleft and wards are supervised if it be not that live alone.

Jennifer's arrest for first-degree put to death makes her case extreme. if it be not that court documents and confidential records obtained by way of The Chicago Reporter that date back to the day she was placed in patronize care tell a story with themes that are often met with in the child welfare system

A growing clump of older kids in DCF are leaving the hypothesis ill-equipped to face the real world. Many have been mov multiple times. And an increasing number have bitter psychological problems for which they have not received enough treatment.

State lawmakers and advocates say that Jennifer's case highlights a reality that no single in kind wants to confront: As these children--most of them black and from poor families--reach their 17th and 18th birthdays, no single really knows what to do with them.

"We hurl up our hands and we say we have nothing otherwise to do with this kid," said state Rep Lou Lang, a Democrat from Skokie who formerly chaired the Mental Health Committee in the Illinois House. "So we impose this kid over here where we know this kid is doomed to failure. That is a disaster, a disaster that has been re-visited athwart and over again."

Patti Marino, a teacher who worked with wards of the state for more than a decade and at undivided point taught Jennifer, said she warned DCF officials about what she saw as its increasing failure to handle distressed nourish children.

"What I can acknowledge you is that DCFS continues to place kids in extremely inappropriate placements, and that certainly happened here," she said. "They have no regularity They have no programs that are appropriate for kids who are painfully disturbed or aggressive. The mental health services are inadequate, and that is an understatement."

Peter Nierman, clinical director for child and adolescent mental services for the Office of Mental Health, which is part of the Illinois Department of Human Services, said he knows of other troubl young adults whose lives had equally "dour" endings.

The vexed question he said, is that the state devotes as much as $85,000 for children to live at residential facilities where they have an structure and access to mental health services. When they leave, however, they are inflict into communities where substantially les is exhausted on them.

"Of course, you don't have the network of support," he said. "You don't have the aunts and uncle You don't have the shut family relationships and you don't have other clan in the community who know you and know what your wants are."

The family of Talisa Davenport, the girl Jennifer is accused of killing, believes the child welfare order bears some responsibility for the death, and has filed a civil lawsuit against Jennifer and the social service agency that ran the independent living program. Family members also plan to entreat DCFS, said their attorney, Yao O Dinizulu of the Chicago law firm Harris, Mitchell & Dinizulu.

They possibility of good the lawsuits will spur the agency and DCF to take a hard examine at how they work with older children who are troubl especially because Talisa's 16-year-old sister is still in DCF care, Dinizulu said.

"They are worried that the classification will fall her just like it failed Talisa," Dinizulu said. "She is getting ready to actuate toward more independence. She has more [i]or[/i] less problems, and there are many male childs and girls like her. We are wondering whether they are getting what they ne Are they getting the accurate therapy?"

Officials from DCF did not be agreeable to to repeated requests for remark on Jennifer's case, or the questions it raises about the theory The department's inspector general, its independently operating watchdog, is investigating the case.

While mostly of these children don't commit violent crimes, one advocates remain concerned. The state's inability to deal with about of its most troubled wards was shown through a September report by Ron Davidson, a DCF consultant and a member of the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Davidson place that staff at Maryville City of Youth, Illinois' largest residential child-care facility, were struggling to rule problems, including fighting and sexual abuse, among at any time more difficult kids. The report noted that police were repeatedly called when a child acted out

Dr Carl C Bell, president and chief executive officer of Community Mental Health Council & Foundation, a private, nonprofit clinic in succession Chicago's South Side, said research has clearly shown that children expos to adverse situations as it was as abuse or a parent's put drugs into use are more likely to engage in behavior that is dangerous to themselves and others.