Lori Davis DeYoung Scholarship for Cultural Representation in Child Welfare

The School of Social Work is pleased to announce the creation of the Lori Davis DeYoung Scholarship for Cultural Representation in Child Welfare. Dr. Lori Davis DeYoung (BS ’90, MSW ’92, PhD ’00) is a lifelong advocate whose decades of service in child welfare, mental health, and Veteran health care have been defined by courageous systems change and a deep commitment to vulnerable families. Recognizing the urgent and persistent need for a workforce that better reflects the cultural identities of the families it serves, Dr. DeYoung has made a generous financial commitment to support current and future social workers who are passionate about advocacy, equity, and family-centered care. By helping prepare change agents committed to culturally responsive practice, the scholarship aims to strengthen trust, improve outcomes for children and families, and advance more representative leadership in child welfare.

Dr. DeYoung is a lifelong Vermilion County resident. She has practiced in the fields of child welfare, mental health and Veteran health care for over three decades. She retired from the Department of Veteran Affairs in 2023 where she had the opportunity to develop and implement two groundbreaking programs within local facilities for the federal government: The Veterans Justice Outreach program in 2010 at the Illiana Healthcare System located in Danville, IL and the Suicide Prevention’s Community Engagement and Partnership program in 2021 at the Richard R. Roudebush Healthcare System located in Indianapolis, IN. Following her retirement from the federal government, she returned to the most beloved of her career fields—child welfare —and is currently serving as a therapist/visitation coach for children and their parents who are receiving services from the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.

Dr. DeYoung started her career in child welfare in 1991 in the Danville Field Office of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. During her time as a Child Welfare Specialist and On-Call Investigator, she became acutely aware of the challenging circumstances faced by parents with an intellectual disability as they attempted to navigate a child welfare system which offered no treatment accommodation for their unique learning needs. In response to this disparity of treatment options available to this vulnerable population of parents, Dr. DeYoung began her doctoral studies to explore this phenomenon across a 16-county geographical area of Central Illinois. Her dissertation research, entitled “An Exploration into the Child Welfare Experience of Parents with Mental Retardation in Illinois,” as well as her co-authored article “Termination of Parental Rights in Illinois and the Americans with Disabilities Act” (DeYoung, L. & Novick, A., Child Law, June 2006) facilitated a growing awareness within DCFS of the specialized services needed by these parents in order to have the greatest likelihood of meeting their family preservation or reunification goals. Dr. DeYoung’s dedicated advocacy on behalf of this population led to an ongoing professional collaboration with DCFS to ensure that parents with intellectual disabilities have access to services that are responsive to their needs leading to her being able to provide over twenty years of specialized therapy, parenting education and coaching, monitored visitation, and parenting capacity evaluation services.

The importance of social work advocacy has been a driving force behind Dr. DeYoung’s professional and public service career. As an elected school board member of Oakwood Unit #76, she strongly advocated for children to receive the special education services that they needed, not just what the school district had to offer or could afford. In 1994, she was the driving force behind the implementation of all-day Kindergarten to ensure that vulnerable children had access to extended day curriculums and at least one hot meal to maximize their learning and academic success. As an elected Vermilion County board member, she ensured that community members had access to prescription discount programs and that rural residents had their health concerns amplified around potentially contaminated water when coal ash was dumped in their neighborhood without adequate safety precautions. Dr. DeYoung also spearheaded a widespread community awareness campaign in her county following the deaths by suicide of ten young men who had graduated from Oakwood High School, which led to ongoing collaboration between key stakeholders and a commitment for Mental Health First Aid Trainings to be provided across Vermilion County.

Dr. DeYoung’s priority for the establishment of this scholarship is that applicants will share her passion for advocacy and be willing to act as change agents within the child welfare system. Although families involved within the child welfare system face many disadvantages, it is well documented that one of the most consistently salient disadvantages is that people of color are significantly overrepresented as clients but dramatically underrepresented in the work force, especially as supervisors. Given a family’s frequent inability to self-pay for their own counseling and the need to utilize the resources offered by the Department, parents and children involved in the child welfare system often lack choice in selecting a clinician with whom they can experience a sense of connection via a shared cultural history. As a Caucasian clinician working primarily with BIPOC clientele, it has been Dr. DeYoung’s experience that families are seeking more cultural similarity with their care team which is developing and evaluating service plan goals and progress. As one young client once said to Dr. DeYoung, “I don’t want you. I want someone who looks like me!” It was this young boy’s request, as well as the growing uncertainty of adequate student loan access and the dismantling of diversity, equity and inclusion programs within the workforce which were the impetus to the establishment of this scholarship.

Dr. DeYoung would like to thank, in memoriam, Dr. Nora Gustavsson, her first professor at the University of Illinois School of Social Work, who taught her the importance of thinking critically and acting bravely to address systemic bias on behalf of our clients who are involved with the child welfare system.

If you would like to learn more about how you can make an impact through scholarships like this, please contact Nathan Goebel.