ICOY Summer 2026 Legislative Tours

“Illinois doesn’t succeed until all children succeed.” – ICOY CEO Andi Durbin 

This past summer, Illinois Collaboration on Youth partnered with Spero Family Services, UCP Seguin, Caritas Family Solutions, Ignite, and Lutheran Child & Family Services to conduct impactful legislative tours. These tours were conducted with the purpose of bringing together organizations, employees working directly with youth in need, and legislators. Connecting legislators to organizations and providing them with a look on the ground allows them to accurately represent the impactful work these organizations achieve each day.  

The summer legislative tours brought a variety of pressing issues to the table focused on helping Illinois’ youth, one being affordability and its branching effects. The rising cost of living and decrease in affordability has brought several challenges: cost of housing, food, changes in government funding (e.g. SNAP qualifications), medical care, and more. Attendees had a collective agreement that the resources and funding necessary to successfully address these challenges will not be provided through federal funding, so state legislation and advocacy is essential. As the percentage of an individual’s income allocated towards housing cost increases, the wider the challenges spread due to the lack of finances for other needs. This shows one of the ways in which this is having widespread effects on not only an individual, but also a community. Another topic addressed was rising youth mental health challenges seen through the organizations’ work. While there was agreement that AI can bring benefits, attendees have mutual understanding of how AI has negatively affected youth’s mental health and, due to decreases in funding, the ways in which we are not able to respond with the right resources.  

While tours consisted of discussing challenges that their communities face, it did not exclude the ways in which social work funding and resources have directly been negatively impacted as well. Tuition assistance has decreased significantly, clearly seen in the Illinois Student Assistance Program’s $4 million cut in the loan repayment program. In tour discussions such as the one at Lutheran Child & Family Services, organizations and ICOY addressed the need to speak up to advocate for the funding necessary to assist social work tuition and internship stipends. Additionally, the background check process is not a new challenge, and it was directly discussed on several tours. The processing time that extends longer than federal standards, understaffing in the DCFS background check unit, and the slow required fingerprint process all contribute to consequentially prolonged employment and hiring processes. 

Each conversation on a topic began with communicating the challenges, but it always ended with exploring ways to address the issue to make positive change. Representatives and Senators contributed to every discussion, collaborating with attendees on how legislation can address the issues at hand and prevent future challenges from arising. Legislators spoke up, showed their support, and took away the knowledge and insight from social workers and organizations necessary to make impactful changes. As Rep. Dagmara Avelar shared, “Being able to have these meetings and talking to people about what their jobs are is important. That’s precisely what our job is as legislators.” 

Thank you to Rep. Dave Severin, Sen. Terri Bryant, Rep. Abdelnassir Rashid, Sen. Erica Harris, Sen. Christopher Belt, Sen. Mattie Hunter, Rep. Amy Elik, Rep. Kevin Schmidt, Rep. Dagmara Avelar, Rep. Anne Stava, Rep. Barbara Hernandez, Rep. Janet Yang Rohr, Rep. Margaret DeLaRosa, Sen. Karina Villa, Sen. Rachel Ventura, Sen. Laura Ellman, and all legislative staff for attending, and thank you to this summer’s hosts: Spero Family Services, UCP Seguin, Caritas Family Solutions, Ignite, and Lutheran Child & Family Services. 

Images are from Lutheran Child & Family Services’ and UCP Seguin’s legislative tours.