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.
An Inquirer review found an oversight system that amounts to little more than a paper shuffle, where auditors review forms yet seldom talk to the people they're supposed to help.
"It's clear to all of us that DHS got sloppy in its oversight; that is certainly an understatement," said Frank Cervone, a child-welfare advocate serving on a mayoral panel charged with cleaning up the department.
Typically, when DHS child-abuse workers see warning signs of abuse or neglect, they hire private contractors to help protect children at home and keep families together. The department relies on this program, known as Services to Children in Their Own Homes, or SCOH, because DHS workers don't routinely visit clients. They oversee 40 contractors who care for nearly 7,000 city children every year.
But an Inquirer review of hundreds of city performance evaluations and contracts, along with interviews with officials and private caseworkers, uncovered a system riddled with flaws. Among them:
Audits show that DHS cited some providers for the same failures year after year and then ignored its own recommendation that those contractors stop receiving cases. In 30 years, records show, DHS officials terminated just three of them.
Unlike some other cities, Philadelphia does not require private providers to bid competitively for work. Two years ago, when City Council pushed for bidding rules for those contracts, DHS officials succeeded in killing the proposal, saying it would decimate the relationship between providers and the families they serve.
As far back as 1988, auditors have urged DHS to strengthen its oversight of welfare workers. Again in 1997, auditors made similar findings. But DHS took little action.
Such lapses can have tragic consequences.
Last summer, Danieal Kelly, a 14-year-old with cerebral palsy, died of neglect while DHS and a private provider, MultiEthnic Behavioral Health, were supposed to be checking on her.
After revelations about her case, Mayor Street dismissed the top two officials in DHS and appointed the reform panel.
State and federal prosecutors have launched criminal investigations into MultiEthnic amid allegations that a company caseworker stopped showing up at the Kelly home. A lawyer for MultiEthnic said the firm bore no responsibility for Danieal's death and that its records showed 18 visits to the Kelly home in the two months before the girl was found dead.
City records show DHS gave "outstanding" marks to MultiEthnic, according to the most recent evaluations made available to The Inquirer. "Extremely energetic," the department raved, saying caseworkers worked nights and weekends to meet with families.
The panel on which Cervone serves is studying 52 cases of children who died in the last five years after they or their families came to the attention of DHS. The panel's findings, due out tomorrow, are expected to fault weak oversight of the contractors.
Acting DHS commissioner Arthur C. Evans Jr. said that since he took charge of the department after the Inquirer investigation in October, DHS had sought to completely change how it monitors contractors. Social workers have conducted safety checks - in person - of nearly 7,000 children who receive services at home.
Meanwhile, the department has stopped sending new clients to five providers and terminated its contract with two more, including MultiEthnic.
Evans said the department planned to hire five more staffer to oversee contracts and shift to a system that measures how well children are cared for and not just how well private providers complete reports. He said DHS workers now ask clients whether providers are showing up and will soon start monthly spot checks. But Evans cautioned that turning DHS around would take time.
"Child welfare is a very complex set of expectations and strategies," he said in a statement. "A truly effective and lasting turnaround simply cannot occur in a matter of months."
With its $600 million budget, DHS spends more tax money than any other city department.The department spends 85 percent of its money, the bulk of which comes from federal and state sources, on outside contractors. They run programs that include parenting classes, drug treatment and foster care.
