Alumni Spotlight: Marc D. Smith, MSW ’97

What drew you to working with youth, especially youth in the child welfare system?

I’ve been working with children in the child welfare system since I graduated from undergrad many years ago. I think my passion has always been to help, and I always felt from the beginning of my career that helping children was the best way to give back to my community.

How do your prior experiences as a social worker inform the decisions you’re making now as director of DCFS?

My initial job in the field was working as a residential child care worker, then I worked in the private sector as a case worker, and then I went on to DCFS as a case worker. That was the point at which I started my the MSW program at UIC. I maintained my job at DCFS and eventually became an investigator and then a supervisor. So I’ve been all the way through every aspect of our system.

This accumulated experience informs my capacity to understand our business from the ground up, and it informs the way I think about every decision that I make. I can see not only through the eyes of the case workers and people doing this very difficult work on the ground, but through the eyes of parents, families and children, because I have a visceral understanding of how our work impacts them.

What are the main things that child welfare specialists should keep in mind when balancing safety while also preserving families/supporting families to keep children in the home?

Ultimately the conversation around safety is the foundation of every decision we make. The safety of children is non-negotiable. If the child stays at home, it’s because we have determined that the child is safe and can be cared for at home. If the child cannot be safely cared for, that is the only metric that you use to pull the child out of the home. Every decision we make is around safety.

What are some ways that child welfare specialists can be effective in coordinating services across multiple systems to ensure the needs of children and families are being met?

The truth is, we are at our best when we are partnering with every aspect of our community. Ultimately, my philosophy has been that safety is the primary goal, but these children are not only DCFS children. They’re the children of our communities, and our expectation is that these children and families receive support from every area, and it’s our job to coordinate that care and ensure we are all working in the same direction for the well-being of children and families.

You’ve been acting director of DCFS for close to one year; what would you say is the most important thing you’ve accomplished so far?

I’ve been very pleased and, frankly, excited about the passion, thoughtfulness and hard work of the staff who work directly with children and families. They are people who care so much, and go out and do work in extraordinarily challenging situations. They have been so receptive to my leadership and to our direction around safety and prioritizing the work they do.

I think the number one thing that we’ve tied to do is enhance our training capacity. We’re working on rebuilding and re-supporting those foundations for our staff, and supporting them in a way that gives them the information, courage and confidence to go out and make the best decisions that they can. They will have the best practices and the best level of care around them to make those decisions.

What are your future plans for optimizing outcomes for families and children involved in the child welfare system?

Moving forward, increasing our training capacity will continue to be a priority. We are looking forward to rolling out supervisory training for our private and public partners, a two-week training in partnership with our university partners to support the growth and development of our supervisors to maintain and support effective teams. We’re very excited about that.

We are working with university partners around predictive analytics as it pertains to child safety and we’re looking forward to that work. We are also planning to increase the resources that have been depleted over the last few years, to provide our children more support in their homes and communities.

We are making a major push with a model called therapeutic foster care which we believe will give our children a higher level of support and an advantage in their homes. We are working with our residential partners to build out their systems and make them more clinically adept and appropriate for the children that we serve. We are really working on rebuilding a foundation of excellence that all of our children and families deserve.

How did your education at Jane Addams prepare you for the work you’re now doing at DCFS?

I really enjoyed my time at Jane Addams. I was in my low to mid twenties, but already working in the field when I started my education. What I got out of that experience was the perspective to see that community is responsible for the care and nurturing of our children and families. The importance of community was reinforced to me throughout my time at Jane Addams.

At that time there was a lot of push for licensed clinical social workers and the thought process was of becoming a therapist and doing individual work in the field of social work. But I believe that Jane Addams really kept the focus on the core of social work, the idea that it is a partnership, it is about coordinating multiple systems, and helping children and families using the systems and supports in their communities. That core message, that I received at Jane Addams, informs my work and my business today.

What advice do you have for people considering a career working with children and families?

I think my advice would be to follow your passion, and to challenge yourself to be the expert that these families need. Social work is not common sense, it is evidence based and it’s informed, and it’s important that the people who join this field maintain a level of excellence, because our families need that.

Is there anything else that you’d like to add?

I really appreciate what I received from JACSW. It gave me the confidence and the foundation of social work that all practitioners need to be successful. So I am a huge advocate of the work that happens at Jane Addams, and I’m proud to be an alumnus of that college.