Childcare access is strained in Illinois. The state’s slow background check system continues to threaten it
Chronic understaffing at DCFS and an unimplemented state law are leaving some childcare centers short-staffed.
Meredith Newman is an embedded investigative reporter with the Illinois Answers Project. Before joining the newsroom, she worked at The News Journal in Wilmington, Delaware and The Capital in Annapolis, Maryland. She is a graduate of Syracuse University and is originally from Evanston, Illinois.
Chronic understaffing at DCFS and an unimplemented state law are leaving some childcare centers short-staffed.
Illinois county jails report thousands of “extraordinary or unusual” incidents every year, but the state doesn’t keep track.
Studies analyzing the outcomes of Early Intervention found it can change a child’s developmental trajectory, and may even reduce the...