The troubled state agency overseeing Illinois' child welfare has agreed to allow outside experts help monitor residential treatment centers and placement services.
A federal judge signed off on an interim compliance plan between the Department of Children and Family Services and the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, which filed a February lawsuit over "dangerously inadequate'' care. It's part of an ongoing consent decree.
The agreement says DCFS will resume using University of Illinois at Chicago clinicians and provide regular reports.
ACLU officials say it's a short-term fix while longer term solutions are drafted.
The agency's problems have been publicized in lawmaker hearings and newspaper investigations on child-abuse deaths and claims of abuse and violence at centers where some state wards stay.
