Nutter: DHS improvements already begun

Though only two months have passed since a grand-jury report harshly criticized the Philadelphia Department of Human Services, the agency is already rethinking its failed policies, Mayor Nutter said at a public meeting last night.

"The DHS of today is not the department you read about in the grand-jury report," the mayor told a crowd of about 100 at Cozen Police Athletic League Center in the Francisville section.

He cited an emphasis on training for the department's 2,000 employees, outreach to the public, and better intake procedures as just some of the improvements under way.

"Change is very difficult. What I've asked is for it to be open," Nutter said, and run according to "the best practices possible."

His remarks came during the first of four town-hall meetings hosted by Commissioner Anne Marie Ambrose, the beleaguered department's new director. The sessions are to discuss changes after the deaths of children under the agency's supervision.

The changes were ordered after a Philadelphia grand jury issued a report July 31 blasting the agency for its part in the starvation death of Danieal Kelly, a 14-year-old who died in her mother's West Philadelphia home in August 2006. Kelly, who used a wheelchair and suffered from cerebral palsy, was under the supervision of DHS. When she died, she weighed 42 pounds, was covered with infected bedsores, and looked, the grand jury said, "like a child victim of a concentration camp."

Ambrose, hired June 23 by Nutter, is preparing a strategic report spelling out her vision for new policies at DHS aimed at preventing tragedies.

She offered the audience of social workers, foster families and others a glimpse of her thinking. Of paramount importance, she said, was quick response when children are ill or in trouble.

She said that a division of compliance management and accountability had been created to monitor the agency's response to case work, and that "we need to improve the outcome for older youth."

"Some of their stories are heartbreaking," Ambrose said. "We need to use their voices to inform the work that we do."

Last night's meeting, well-attended despite rain, lasted two hours.

"One of the reasons we are here having this meeting is to hear if we are on the right road," Ambrose said.

Charmaine N. Ijeoma traveled from Glenside to complain that foster children had been removed from her home for "no reason," and that she had been treated as a troublemaker when she challenged the move.

"Sadly," she said, "multiple placements are routine in the child-welfare system, and the practice constitutes child abuse."

Rachel Poller of Philadelphia gave an impassioned defense of her sister, Martha Poller, who she said was being "fired" by the department in connection with the Kelly case despite a good work record spanning 29 years.

Ambrose replied that the firing wasn't official yet.

Alicia Taylor, DHS communications director, said one building block of the department's change was public input, and there was no lack of it at the meeting. The department, she said, has an annual budget of $600 million, and serves 10,000 to 15,000 clients on an ongoing basis.

The grand jury's report said that if just one of Kelly's caseworkers had done the bare minimum on her behalf, the girl would have lived. But the report said most hadn't even bothered to see the child.

After her death, the grand jury said, department workers and supervisors, as well as caseworkers hired from an outside agency, covered up the neglect by generating false reports of care never given.

Nine people, including the Kelly's parents, have been charged with felonies or misdemeanors in connection with her death and the subsequent investigation.

Carmen Paris, 51, acting health commissioner when Kelly died, resigned Aug. 1, one day after being suspended, allegedly for pressuring a medical examiner to downplay results of the child's autopsy.

The actions came nearly two years after The Inquirer published investigative articles detailing the deaths of children under DHS supervision. After the reports appeared, then-Mayor John F. Street appointed a panel to overhaul the agency.

The Department of Human Services has scheduled three more town-hall meetings to discuss and gather input for reforming the agency:

Oct. 16, 7 to 9 p.m., Beloved St. John Evangelistic Church, 4541 N. Broad St.

Oct. 30, 7 to 9 p.m., Lenfest Police Athletic League Center, 3890 N. 10th St.

Nov. 12, 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., Compassion Community Development Corp., 6150 Cedar Ave.

EndText