"There is a wide range of skills, of course," said Poller. "Some supervisors are more zealous than others. Some will try to cover for weak workers who are burned out and just don't care anymore, or who don't quite have the gumption or strength to deal with difficult issues."

Poller can recall about 15 firings, and a few others who left on their own after they were reprimanded for lying about making visits to a client.

"The truly bad ones are few and far between," she said. "Some we help shape up. Some we help ship out."

• 

Every choice has rough edges.

Take a child, and put him... where? There's a shortage of good foster homes. Leave a child, and who knows what may happen? DHS hires private companies to work with troubled families - teaching parenting skills, getting them medical and mental-health care and making sure they have enough to eat.

Given the consequences of making the wrong decision, a social worker like Soloman can have trouble staying detached.

Blunt-spoken and unadorned by makeup or jewelry, she projects a tough image, but her desk is covered with a Minnie and Mickey Mouse collection. She buys her clients toys. She carries with her a photo of a baby she recently saved from starvation - a child she pledges to visit until he is safely out of adolescence.

When Soloman first went into the field out of college, she was so disturbed by the suffering she saw that she quit and spent 10 years as a pediatric dental assistant.

"I wanted to take every kid home with me," she said.

Since returning to DHS three years ago, she still takes her cases personally. "I won't go out of a house unless I know I can sleep that night."

So it troubled her that, for five months, she could not be sure that Bridges' boys, Keshawn and Tavon, were safe.

• 

Children everywhere are neglected and abused. Whatever defect drives people to treat their young barbarically, it is not the exclusive domain of the poor and urban. DHS workers have to be careful not to punish families who are simply overwhelmed.

"Poverty is not a crime." That is the mantra Soloman and her coworkers repeat every time they walk into a house where parents seem to have given up, crushed by the weight of need and obligation.

Shamah Ellis, an investigator based on the same floor as Soloman in the DHS office building at 16th and Arch Streets, was called out last month on just such a case.

The mother had cerebral palsy, the report said, and was unable to care for her three children.

Ellis pulled into a street as narrow as an alley. From the outside, the house looked well-kept. A woman with one sock on invited Ellis in, and introduced herself as Alex.

She was eating pudding from a takeout container. Her year-old daughter, leaning against her knees, begged for a bite.

"I bought this for me," Alex told her. "I don't want to share no more."