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Child Welfare in Philadelphia

DANIEAL KELLY, A CHILD LEFT TO DIE

THE STORIES

Danieal Kelly, a 14-year-old with cerebral palsy, wasted away in a Mantua apartment in 2006. Two years later, a grand jury found that nine people, including her parents and social workers, were responsible for her death.

TIMELINE

Follow the events that lead to the indictments of nine people in Danieal Kelly's death.

GRAND JURY REPORT

Read the grand jury report, which includes graphic images.

First Independent Review

The Department of Human Services has made significant headway in rethinking how it protects children in Philadelphia but has far to go before its reforms find their way to the streets, a panel of experts reported Thursday in the first outside review of the agency since a shake-up in 2006.

Recommended changes

Report shows how DHS failed

The remedy: A new dedication to children—and oversight.

Children have died needlessly because of "significant system failures" that plague the city Department of Human Services, a panel of experts said in a wrenching report made public today.

INQUIRER INVESTIGATION

Inquirer Investigation: 'Bury Your Mistakes'

Three years after a string of blunders by DHS was widely blamed for failing to prevent the torture-murder of toddler Porchia Bennett, an Inquirer investigation has found that young children are still regularly abused to death after coming to the attention of DHS.

CHILD WELFARE FROM THE INSIDE

On the DHS front lines

Caseworkers cope with poverty, abuse - and the fallout from children's deaths.

Paula Soloman parallel-parked her hulking city-issued van into a tight space in front of the weathered white house. Finally, she thought, she was going to meet the elusive Nakesha Bridges.

RESOURCES

How You Can Help

If you have suspicions that a child is being abused or neglected, there are several hotlines to call to report the information.

Child-abuse cases in Phila.

This graphic shows statistics on reports of child abuse, child-abuse deaths, cases of neglect and youths placed in out-of-home care.

Girl wasted away under DHS care - 07/31/2008: 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.
City stays course at Tenn. child center - 10/11/2007: Though a teen's death there was ruled a homicide, DHS said the rest of its youths couldn't be removed any faster.

City officials said yesterday that they would not immediately remove children from a Tennessee juvenile facility despite a ruling this week that the death of a Philadelphia teen in June was a homicide.
Homicide ruled at youth center - 10/10/2007: A 17-year-old boy sent by DHS to a Tennessee facility died after a fight and "restraint" by staffers.

Omega Leach, the Philadelphia teen killed in June after the city sent him to a Tennessee treatment center, died of strangulation after a fight with a staff member there, according to the Tennessee medical examiner.
Youth center license is downgraded - 08/22/2007: Abuse cases and other failings have led state officials to downgrade the Youth Study Center's operating license until improvements are made.
Center's abuses didn't deter DHS - 08/05/2007: Despite a drumbeat of warnings that children were being violently subdued and injured, the city continued to send emotionally troubled youth to a Tennessee facility.
Another life lost on DHS's watch - 06/24/2007: The agency sent Omega Leach, a troubled 17-year-old, to a Tenn. youth facility in May. A month later, he was dead.

The City of Philadelphia decided a trip south was best for Omega Leach, an angry teenager who got in trouble for stealing a car.
Report shows how DHS failed - 06/01/2007: The remedy: A new dedication to children—and oversight.

Children have died needlessly because of "significant system failures" that plague the city Department of Human Services, a panel of experts said in a wrenching report made public today.
Serious questions about DHS care - 05/30/2007: 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.
Statement of Arthur C. Evans Jr. - 05/30/2007: DHS has significantly improved its provider oversight and monitoring over the past several months and continues to take steps to further enhance oversight. DHS has implemented a monitoring program which provides oversight for contracted services on a regular basis; this is an improvement over the current system, which evaluates only on an annual basis. The more frequent monitoring will allow the department to identify problems sooner and undertake any needed corrective actions more quickly. This new monitoring process will be fully implemented within the next few weeks as additional staff is hired.
Asociación De Puertorriqueños En Marcha - 05/30/2007
Friendship House - 05/30/2007
Germantown Settlement - 05/30/2007
Women's Christian Alliance - 05/30/2007
Youth Service Inc. - 05/30/2007: 1526 Fairmount Ave. Responsible for providing services to 118 children. DHS contracts in 2006: $8.2 million. The company provides services to children in their homes and runs a temporary shelter for 20 teens awaiting permanent placement. Children typically spend a few weeks there.
DHS pace of change is slammed - 05/08/2007: A report called for reform by June. A "sense of urgency" is needed, Pa.'s welfare chief says.

Three months after a state report faulted the city's Department of Human Services for failing to meet federal standards for protecting children, Pennsylvania's secretary of public welfare said the agency had not moved fast enough to reform.
At DHS, all eyes are on change - 05/04/2007: 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 - 05/01/2007: 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.
Private agencies, public role - 05/01/2007: Bernadette M. Bianchi is executive director of the Pennsylvania Council of Children, Youth and Family Services No one should ever make excuses for the deaths of children in the child-welfare system. Whether it is due to bad public policy or inadequate interventions, the death of even one child calls for accountability and concrete remedies.
Even a DHS overhaul failed to save this life - 03/04/2007: An addicted mother. A new policy. A baby still lost.

Two weeks after her granddaughter was born, Vanessa Hargrove called Philadelphia child-welfare officials and warned them: The baby's mother was high during labor.
DHS dilemma: Doing right by a child - 01/21/2007: A foster couple battles a mandate to keep families together.

Pat White first met Ronnie when he was 6, a child so neglected that the instinct to feed him, wash his clothes, and give him a hug was overwhelming.
DHS mustn't blink - 01/03/2007: Experience shows that fixing the complicated child-welfare system requires constant attention to details. A new panel has all it needs.

By Paul DiLorenzo Twenty years ago, I was a member of a team appointed by then-Secretary of Public Welfare John F. White to review the deaths of 21 children known to the Philadelphia child-welfare system.
A tragedy that money can't fix - 12/22/2006: Special report: A young girl placed in the hands of danger gets one of the city government's biggest civil-rights awards in memory. Her mother awaits an apology.

It was a victory, but to Vanessa, not a satisfying one. Sitting in a windowless federal courtroom at Sixth and Market Streets, the 41-year-old librarian quietly absorbed the news. The City of Philadelphia had agreed to pay her adopted daughter $1 million for the harm she'd suffered while under the supervision of the Department of Human Services.
DHS is studying its failures, says acting chief - 12/14/2006: Arthur C. Evans Jr., the man charged with revamping the city's troubled Department of Human Services, assured City Council members yesterday that he was moving swiftly to fix the agency's problems.
A daunting fight in DHS trenches - 12/03/2006: Caseworkers cope with poverty, abuse — and the fallout from children’s deaths.
Public reporting of abuse debated - 10/18/2006: Pa. is struggling to meet federal standards for disclosure of child-abuse deaths and injury.

Gov. Rendell and Pennsylvania lawmakers were moving yesterday toward legislation that would for the first time require the state to tell the public details about each child-abuse death - but only the bare minimum needed to comply with a federal law.
Father charged with killing baby son - 10/17/2006: The father of a year-old North Philadelphia boy has been charged with beating the child to death. Authorities said yesterday there was evidence that the boy might have been abused in the past.
Hearings urged on DHS conduct - 10/17/2006: Lawmakers said secrecy is the wrong policy. Ten children died after contact with the agency last year.

State and local elected officials called yesterday for hearings into the conduct of Philadelphia's Department of Human Services (DHS), the $600 million agency that investigates child abuse.
DHS 'death reviews' are kept confidential - 10/15/2006: Critics say agency avoids accountability to public.

When a child on the Department of Human Services' watch is killed by a caregiver, city and state officials comb through case files and interview social workers to find out what went wrong.
Details of Porchia case's failures emerge - 10/15/2006: DHS officials knew more about what had gone wrong, but did not reveal it publicly - because they weren't asked, they said.

In the months after the torture-murder of 3-year-old Porchia Bennett, top officials at the Department of Human Services spoke of the 2003 case as a shattering event that would change the culture at the agency.
Inquirer Investigation: 'Bury Your Mistakes' - 10/15/2006: In September, five months shy of her second birthday, Alayiah Turman was pummeled to death after she interrupted a video game. Marrieon Currie, 11 weeks old in January, took his final breaths as he was being doused in hot water, thrown down stairs, and beaten with a mop handle. Bryanna Redmond, a skinny 2-year-old known as "Princess," died last year from a punch that split her spine. Before they were killed - each by a parent, police say - all three children had come under the scrutiny of the city's child-protection agency, the Department of Human Services, which has the power to remove children from abusive homes.
How a child died in her mother's basement - 07/31/2008: Charlene Wise was sitting at a kitchen table in Norristown when her water broke. It was just after midnight and her sixth child was about to be born.
When a mother's care turns deadly - 07/31/2008: Special Report: How Charlene Wise, who killed her child, lives with herself.

As soon as he entered the house at 3017 W. Harper St., Sgt. William Kelly was certain he would not find a body. There was no smell of decomposing flesh.
AGENCY FAULTED IN GIRL'S DEATH - 07/31/2008: A REPORT SAYS THE DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN SERVICES FAILED CHARNAE WISE, WHO DIED IN 1997.
Pa. aide demoted in fallout at DHS - 07/31/2008: 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.
DHS moves swiftly on review - 07/31/2008: 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.
Teen under DHS care: A fugitive - 07/31/2008: 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.
Firm with ties to DHS investigated - 07/31/2008: 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.
City won't release DHS data - 07/31/2008: 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 - 07/31/2008: 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.