City DHS stops holding children overnight in office
The city's Department of Human Services has halted the use of a ground-floor office at 1515 Arch St. to house children overnight.
The city's Department of Human Services has halted the use of a ground-floor office at 1515 Arch St. to house children overnight.
At a City Council hearing Tuesday, acting DHS Commissioner Jessica Shapiro said staff have worked diligently to place children with family, in emergency shelters, or group homes rather than having them sleep at DHS headquarters - a small step in improving a child welfare system slapped with dozens of violations in a state audit last month.
From January through May 25, 120 children stayed in the room, equipped with toys and games, a television, play mats, beds, a shower, and food. Butterflies and flowers are painted on walls. A second room has a shower, and a washer and dryer.
Shapiro said that on average, one to two children stayed per night - typically dropped off by police or investigators who found credible abuse or danger at home.
But after the state admonished DHS for reliance on the room for overnight stays in an audit released last month, the practice ended. The audit led the state to downgrade the city's child welfare license.
Council's Committee on Public Health and Human Services held hearings Tuesday in which use of the room became the focus of nearly an hour of discussion.
"Our staff will ask young people, 'Who's in your cellphone? Who's in your circle that we can call?' " Shapiro said. "We're working so hard. ... Police bring them in at midnight. We're transporting them to a place at midnight, at 3 a.m. if necessary."
The city also created a new emergency care rate for foster parents willing to take a child in the middle of the night on a short-term basis, and expanded the number of beds at emergency shelters and group homes.
Councilwoman Cindy Bass asked how the city went from 120 children needing to stay in the room over four months to no children using the room after the audit was released.
"Were we not doing that before?" Bass asked. "Now we suddenly start doing what we probably should have done all along? It doesn't really jibe, because if this is standard operating procedure ... we should have been doing it all along."
Kimberly Ali, chief implementation officer for Improving Outcomes for Children, DHS's new model, said that in the past, typical procedure was to put a child who arrived at the office late at night to bed and then, ideally, have a placement ready come morning.
"We've made a commitment, no matter what time the young person comes in, that we need to work and work aggressively to make sure that person goes into placement," Ali said.
Staffing and funding were also major focuses of the hearing.
DHS is several years into an overhaul of its system that puts private community-umbrella agencies (CUA) in charge of case management and leaves DHS to handle oversight.
As the agency has transitioned, it has also swelled - taking in 2,000 more children than in 2012. The increase has resulted in overburdened CUA workers, who handle an average of 13 cases and 30 or more children.
Vanessa Fields, vice president of AFSCME District Council 47, which represents employees at DHS, called the overhaul a failure.
"Philadelphia not only needs to hit the pause button, we need to yank the cord," she said. "We cannot continue privatization."
David Fair, deputy CEO at Turning Points for Children, one of the 10 community umbrella agencies contracted by the city, said CUAs need more funding to hire case workers, a request the city has consistently denied, citing its own budget restraints and staffing needs.
Fair said CUAs have 392 case managers doing work formerly handled by 660. The turnover rate is about 15 percent and many of the problems cited in the state's report stem from overburdened workers, he said.
The DHS is funded by city, state, and federal money. A state representative was invited but did not attend Tuesday's hearing.
"These caseloads are unacceptable, untenable, and risky," Fair said. He paraphrased a comment by a colleague:
"If this was the typical workload of an airplane pilot, none of us would ever get on a plane."
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Staff photographer Tom Gralish contributed to this article.