couples seeking to adopt white children, but black children often spent years in foster homes, waiting on average two and one-half times longer than white children for adoptive parents.

Because the problem was so serious it quickly moved to the top of the agenda of Gregory Coler, who had become director of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) in 1978 after distinguished service in New York state government. Coler, who is white, concluded that the department should turn to the black community for a solution. His deputy, Gordon Johnson, who is black, concurred.

Unfortunately, in part because of its responsibilities under the law, the DCFS had acquired a bad reputation in the black community. As the agency charged with investigating complaints of abuse and neglect, DCFS officials sometimes found themselves accused of "snooping." As the agency charged with removing at-risk children from their parents' custody, officials had also sometimes been accused of "child-snatching." Moreover, the service-delivery style of the adoption staff sometimes caused irritation. Some were seen as rigid in their interpretation of child-placement criteria, criteria that had the effect of excluding some potential black adoptive parents (for example, those with apartments of modest size).

Under pressure to increase the adoption rates for black infants, the DCFS staff had placed some children in interracial homes outside of Illinois. The practice not only angered blacks in Cook County but also ran counter to a resolution adopted in 1979 by the National Association of Black Social Workers opposing adoption of black children by whites. Clearly, barriers of fear and resentment had to be overcome before the DCFS could mount a program to recruit adoptive parents for black children.