Section 328.2  Definitions

"Children for Whom the Department has Legal Responsibility" or "Department Wards", as used in this Part, means children for whom the Department of Children and Family Services has temporary protective custody, custody or guardianship via court order, or children whose parents have signed an adoptive surrender or voluntary placement agreement with the Department.

"Facility" means a person, group of persons, or corporation caring for children licensed under applicable laws.  Facility includes, but is not limited to, child care institution, related or non-related foster family home or group home.

"Fictive kin"  means any individual, unrelated by birth or marriage, who:

is shown to have significant and close personal or emotional ties with the child or the child’s family prior to the child’s placement with the individual; or

is the current foster parent of a child in the custody or guardianship of the Department pursuant to the Child and Family Services Act and the Juvenile Court Act of 1987, if the child has been placed in the home for at least one year and has established a significant and family-like relationship with the foster parent, and the foster parent has been identified by the Department as the child's permanent connection. [20 ILCS 505/7(b)]

"Godparent" is a person who sponsors a child at baptism or one in whom the parents have entrusted a special duty that includes assisting in raising the child if the parent cannot raise the child.  If the person is considered to be the child's godparent, in order for placement to occur, the same placement selection criteria as contained in 89 Ill. Adm. Code 301.60 (Placement Selection Criteria) must be met.  If the godparent is not a licensed foster parent, all the conditions currently in effect for placement with relatives in 89 Ill. Adm. Code 301.80 (Relative Home Placement) must be met.

"Interstate Compact on the Placement of Children" is a law, enacted by all 50 states and the territories of Guam and the Virgin Islands, for the purpose of establishing uniform procedures for handling the interstate placement of children in foster homes, adoptive homes, or other child care facilities.

"Permanent connection" means a family-like relationship, consistent with a child's best interests, health, safety and well-being, that provides:

safe, stable and committed parenting;

unconditional love and lifelong support; and

a permanent legal status between child and family.

For a child for whom the Department is legally responsible, a permanent connection may be the child's parents or another caregiver in the child's home of origin. When the child cannot be safely returned home, a permanent connection may be the current or former foster parent or relative caregiver, an individual identified as an adoptive or legal guardianship placement resource, or another individual from among the child's or family's lifelong connections with whom a child has developed a familial relationship.

"Placement", as used in this Part, means the arrangement for the continuing care of a child in a foster or adoptive family home, group home, child care institution, or other child care facility as defined by the Child Care Act of 1969 [225 ILCS 10].  Placements do not include care of a child in a medical facility, a mental health facility, a correctional facility or an educational facility.

"Relative", for purposes of placement of children for whom the Department is legally responsible, means any person, 21 years of age or over, other than the parent, who:

            is currently related to the child in any of the following ways by blood or adoption:  grandparent, sibling, great-grandparent, uncle, aunt, nephew, niece, first cousin, first cousin once removed (children of one's first cousin to oneself), second cousin (children of first cousins are second cousins to each other), godparent (as defined in this Section), great-uncle, or great-aunt;

            is the spouse, or party to a civil union, of such a relative;

            is the child's step-father, step-mother, step-grandfather, step-grandmother or adult step-brother or step-sister; or

            is the partner, or adult child of a partner, in a civil union with the child's mother or father; or

            is a fictive kin as defined in this Section.

"Relative" also includes a person related in any of the foregoing ways to a sibling of a child, even though the person is not related to the child, when the child and its sibling are placed together with that person.  For children who have been in the guardianship of the Department, have been adopted, and are subsequently returned to the temporary custody or guardianship of the Department, a "relative" may also include any person who would have qualified as a relative under this definition prior to the adoption, but only if the Department determines that it would be in the best interests of the child to consider this person a relative.  [20 ILCS 505/7(b)]

(Source:  Amended at 42 Ill. Reg. 2222, effective January 17, 2018)