Foster care is supposed to be a refuge. When it isn’t—when a child is placed into a home that is unsafe, unvetted, or poorly supervised—the harm can be devastating and lifelong. The uncomfortable truth is that many tragedies aren’t mysterious. They’re preventable. And prevention often comes down to the same basics we expect in any safety-critical system: screening, verification, documentation, follow-up, and swift action when red flags appear.
This white paper-style post explains how accountability works when those basics break down. It lays out the practical legal framework behind foster care placement malpractice in Illinois, the typical failure patterns that lead to harm, the defenses agencies often raise, and the kinds of evidence that can prove what happened.
Most importantly, it explains how our firm approaches these cases with a child-first, trauma-informed strategy. We don’t treat them like routine injury claims. We treat them like what they are: safety failures in a system that had a duty to protect.
Chicago Medical Malpractice Lawyers Blog



