Pa. downgrades city DHS license, citing shortcomings

Pennsylvania downgraded Philadelphia's Department of Human Services (DHS) license Monday, citing serious violations of child-welfare laws, including falsified visit reports, sloppy documentation of cases, and keeping children overnight in agency offices.

The state issued a provisional certificate so DHS could continue operating, and ordered DHS to come up with a plan to address the violations detailed in an 82-page audit.

This is the first time since 2009 that the child-welfare agency has received a provisional license. If an agency fails four consecutive reviews, the state withholds funding or takes over.

The critical downgrading follows news that the agency fired seven social workers in February and March for filing false-visit reports. It also comes after nearly 10 years of work aimed at improving the system since 14-year-old Danieal Kelly starved to death under DHS supervision in 2006.

The city decentralized its case-management system, transferring cases to private, neighborhood-based Community Umbrella Agencies (CUAs) in an attempt to bring services closer to families.

Ted Dallas, secretary of the state Department of Human Services, blamed DHS's current woes on the switch, which has been fraught with problems.

"The issues you're seeing are the result of a troubled transition to this new CUA system," Dallas said. "I think the implementation - and these are largely events that occurred prior to the Kenney administration - has been very difficult and led to breakdowns."

Dallas said that while case transfers have occurred, the city has not given proper resources to the CUAs to handle those cases.

He pointed to 84 times in 2015 when children had to stay overnight at DHS headquarters at 15th and Arch Streets when caseworkers could not find a temporary place for them to stay.

"Other states have been sued over things like that," Dallas said. "Those are red flags that could lead to tragedy, signs that if things don't start heading in the right direction, bad things could happen."

Philadelphia is weighing whether to appeal the decision, city DHS spokeswoman Alicia Taylor said.

"The Department of Human Services began a major transformation several years ago in an effort to safely keep children in their own homes and communities," acting Commissioner Jessica Shapiro said in a statement. "While we are disappointed to receive a provisional certificate of compliance, we are committed to working with the state to address their concerns and to achieve better outcomes for the children and families of Philadelphia."

The state will now hold biweekly meetings with city staff, and will reinspect the agency later this year.

Only three other counties in the state have provisional licenses - Dauphin, Luzerne, and York.

As part of the review, investigators visited all 10 CUAs and audited 47 cases, 30 of which contained violations, resulting in 70 individual citations.

Philadelphia's system has grown by nearly 1,000 children in the last year, while it has taken longer to have children reunited with family members or be adopted.

Other issues detailed in the report include:

CUA staff without immediate access to case records, including historical, medical, or criminal information on the families they are assigned to. "This lack of case information provides no working knowledge of prior history of abuse/neglect," the report says.

Delays or absence of home safety-visit reports.

No documentation of renewals for FBI and state police clearances for workers.

Nine records in which safety threats were not addressed or face-to-face contact was not made to determine a child's safety.

Failure to train staff and resource parents.

Failure to engage with fathers or extended family in seeking family placements for children.

The full audit is available here.

jterruso@phillynews.com

215-854-5506@juliaterruso