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Inquirer Investigation: 'Bury Your Mistakes'
As a result, the agency still depends on the judgment of individual caseworkers - some of whom are incompetent, according to DHS critic Gelles.
After the Bennett case, then-Commissioner Alba Martinez hired several consultants to examine and overhaul the agency's risk-assessment procedures.
DHS officials said Friday that they might implement some of the recommendations.
"This is a work in progress," Deputy Commissioner John McGee said.
Ransom-Garner said the agency was working to improve its systems on its own timetable, consistent with state regulations. She also argued that the Bennett case did not point to profound problems in how DHS operated.
"What happened to Porchia Bennett, we looked at that case and said, 'Lessons learned, what do we need to do here?' " she said. "The system was not broke."
Losing sleep
Ransom-Garner's predecessor, Martinez, struck a different tone when she hired a Penn team led by Gelles, a nationally recognized child-welfare expert, and Carol Wilson Spigner, a child-welfare official in the Clinton administration.
"This was Alba's project, because she wanted to prevent another Porchia Bennett," Gelles said. "She lost a lot of sleep over it."
Gelles said the DHS policy manual "said you should do this you should do that, but it gave almost no guidance as to how."
