DANIEAL KELLY

 

Lawyer for Danieal Kelly estate hires lawyer

After four days of public vilification in which his professional ethics have been challenged, a lawyer for Danieal Kelly's estate has hired his own attorney to try to "set the record straight."

 

Social worker in Danieal Kelly case faces deportation

A privately employed social worker charged with eight others in the starvation death of 14-year-old Danieal Kelly was in federal custody yesterday facing deportation, accused of lying on his application for U.S. citizenship.

 

Danieal Kelly's parents sue the city

Just one day after they were charged in the starvation death of their 14-year-old daughter, the parents of Danieal Kelly sued the city for failing to step in and save her.

 

Electronic monitoring out for social worker in DHS death

During a brief hearing yesterday, a Municipal Court judge denied a request to modify bail conditions for one of the defendants in the starvation death of Danieal Kelly.

 

Two DHS workers in child death case are fired

Two child-welfare workers criminally charged in the starvation death of 14-year-old Danieal Kelly were fired yesterday after an internal review of their conduct in the case.

 

Nutter seeks to reassure DHS workers

Twenty-four hours after he harshly criticized the Department of Human Services employees linked to the death of 14-year-old Danieal Kelly, Mayor Nutter sought to placate hundreds of their angry colleagues during a series of tense, closed-door meetings.

 

Nutter suspends 7 DHS workers

"It is appalling, it is outrageous" that the agency failed to save Danieal Kelly, the mayor said.

Vowing that the starvation death of 14-year-old Danieal Kelly would not be in vain, Mayor Nutter yesterday suspended seven more workers at the Department of Human Services and said "no child will again face the same fate."

 

Nutter lambastes DHS workers connected to girl's death

The horrible details of Danieal Kelly's death brought tears to Mayor Nutter's eyes yesterday, but it was the complicity of city employees in her starvation that made him rage.

 

Hall: Daniel smiled, we didn't see

The yellow and white barrettes are what got me most. Danieal Kelly was laid out, nude, her back to us in the searingly gruesome photo - the photo that launched an investigation, led to the downfall of more than a dozen people, including the head of the Department of Human Services, and now to the overhaul of the entire department.

 

Heads That Have Rolled

Since The Inquirer reported the death of Danieal Kelly in October 2006, the following people have been criminally charged, ousted or suspended from their jobs.

 

For new DHS chief, always a crisis

Anne Marie Ambrose had little more than a month to settle into her new post as head of the city's troubled Department of Human Services when the first crisis hit.

 

Two social workers tried to intervene, but to no avail

The scathing grand-jury report into the starvation of a 14-year-old with cerebral palsy was filled with allegations of villainy - social workers trashing reports, ignoring warning signs, lying, covering up.

 

Report says DHS feeds toxic culture

The grand jury found that lax workers and supervisors were rewarded even after scandals.

It's not too few social workers. It's not too little money. It's not a lack of smart policies. The harsh grand-jury report on Philadelphia's Department of Human Services said some caseworkers oversaw as few as 18 families. It said the agency, with its $600 million budget, was one of the best-funded in the nation. It said the agency had a perfectly adequate "risk assessment" process to figure out if a child was in danger.

 

Phila. health official resigns in DHS fallout

Philadelphia's former top health official resigned yesterday amid allegations that she interfered with an investigation of the starvation death of 14-year-old Danieal Kelly. Paris had been suspended and was escorted from her office.

 

Nine indicted in fatal neglect of girl

DHS’s care for an ailing girl was lacking, and she died.

In the most searing dissection yet of Philadelphia's child-welfare agency, a grisly grand-jury report yesterday found that a 14-year-old girl rotted in her bed because of the system's brutal indifference. Prosecutors charged that nine people, including the girl's parents and four social workers, stood by while Danieal Kelly, who had cerebral palsy, starved to death.

 

Serious questions about DHS care

SPECIAL REPORT: Private contractors that provide services to children get little oversight by the agency, a review finds.

For decades, Philadelphia's Department of Human Services paid private contractors tens of millions of dollars to check on vulnerable children but did little to make sure those checks were actually happening.

 

At DHS, all eyes are on change

New nurses. Quick response to the youngest clients. Phila. child-welfare officials say they are shaping up.

Arthur C. Evans offers the following story as evidence of how far the city agency responsible for abused and neglected children has come in just a few months.

 

Review faults inaction by DHS

Of 36 recommendations after child deaths, no progress was made on 17. Others were only discussed, the agency said.

When a child dies under the care of the city's Department of Human Services, a team of experts within the agency investigates, pinpointing failings in the system and suggesting improvements.

 

City won't release DHS data

The city solicitor denied an Inquirer request for internal reviews of child-abuse deaths.

Despite a recent promise of openness by Philadelphia's new child-welfare commissioner, the Street administration is refusing to make public the city's internal reviews of child-abuse deaths.

 

Mounting Failures Left Girl to Die

Danieal Kelly's family shunned stability. It says social workers dodged visits. And DHS missed chances.

Almost from the day she was born - three months premature, suffering from cerebral palsy, weighing just 1 pound, 4 ounces - the adults in her life kept letting Danieal Kelly down.

 

Firm with ties to DHS investigated

Authorities want to know if a social-service agency fraudulently got millions in federal cash.

A federal grand jury is investigating whether a social-services contractor defrauded taxpayers when it charged millions of dollars to monitor hundreds of vulnerable children - including a 14-year-old girl who died of neglect during an August heat wave.

 

Teen under DHS care: A fugitive

A caseworker told the agency she saw the youth regularly. Police said he was on the run part of that time, sought in two slayings.

Throughout the summer, a city-paid caseworker visited the home of a troubled 17-year-old named Braheem Burke to make sure he was OK. The worker's employer, MultiEthnic Behavioral Health, assured the city Department of Human Services that nothing unusual had happened to him. But police tell a different story: During part of the time MultiEthnic claimed to be checking on the teen, Burke was a fugitive, wanted in a double slaying.

 

DHS moves swiftly on review

The new leader said a probe in-house would review dozens of contractors being paid to monitor children.

In what he calls an effort to "begin to reestablish the credibility of this agency," Philadelphia's new child welfare commissioner has launched a plan to step up the monitoring of millions of dollars in contracts and revisit each child under the city's care.

 

Pa. aide demoted in fallout at DHS

Amid an inquiry into child deaths in Phila., the aide, in the job

The state official in charge of regulating Philadelphia's child-welfare system has been removed from his post amid questions about why the city agency received passing grades while child-abuse deaths were increasing.

 

Girl wasted away under DHS care

City review of teen's neglect was key to ouster of leadership.

Fourteen-year-old Danieal Kelly, bedridden and nearly paralyzed with cerebral palsy, wasted away in her stifling Mantua apartment, gaping bedsores exposing her bones. When she died, she weighed just 46 pounds.