As the Advocacy Council worked towards the goal of a Deaf Unit, the Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) began looking at the details of how the unit would operate.

In the beginning, the unit hired three Children’s Social Workers (CSW) and one staff interpreter. The hotline would refer child abuse reports to the Deaf Unit when they identified a deaf member of the family as part of the report. The Deaf Unit CSW would take the report, do the initial investigation, case management and see the case through to the end. In general, DCFS would have a CSW respond to the hotline call and then another worker would take over the case management. The Deaf Unit felt it was important to have one CSW see the case from beginning to end.

Today the Deaf Unit employs nine CSW, eight of whom are deaf. The unit is split into two units, with two supervisors and four full-time, staff interpreters. Two of the interpreters also speak Spanish to assist with tri-lingual needs of the clients.