Women's Christian Alliance

1722-42 Cecil B. Moore Ave.

Responsible for providing services to 310 children.

2006 DHS contracts: $5.4 million.

The alliance places children in foster care and runs a program that checks on chronically ill children living in foster care. A November review of its foster-care treatment program found problems and the program was terminated.

Though the alliance had two months notice of an impending audit, its records were in such disarray that the auditor rescheduled her visit for a month later, according to DHS records.

In October the files were still incomplete. The program lacked coherence, the staff was not adequately trained, and there was no system of checks and balances, the auditor noted. She also wrote that children were not consulted about where they wanted to live and did not have the chance to meet foster parents before being placed.

Director Marilyn Hillian Rivers said the alliance's foster-care program provided service for 21 children and that they were all safe and healthy. "It was a technical matter of not having information in files regarding home visits," she said. The alliance has other contracts with DHS, she said.

"The new focus we have on quality assures me that the mistake of not having information on file will not happen again," she said. She said the agency had had many success stories since it was founded in 1919.

The alliance settled a lawsuit two years ago for its role in a 1995 case in which a 4-year-old was raped by a man staying at her foster home.

Irving Ford pleaded guilty to raping the girl. The lawsuit originally also named DHS and two of its officials as defendants, but the city settled out of court for $500,000. Rivers said her agency was not at fault in the $2.8 million case.

"That was a case in which a child was transferred from out of town to a home and the truth is no one knows when the child encountered that problem," Rivers said. "But, legally, if you're the last person with hands on the situation, you are responsible," she said.

There has not been another incident since took over, she said.