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Friendship House

    by Tony Fitts
    Published 

Based in Scranton with two homes in Philadelphia, including 1424 W. Allegheny Ave. Responsible for providing services to 138 children.

2006 DHS contracts: $5.9 million.

DHS reviews from September 2005 through November 2006 rated Friendship House as "poor," the second-lowest rating. In January DHS suspended new clients, saying, "This decision is a result of Friendship House's poor performance on their program evaluations conducted September 2005, June 2006 and November 2006."

In a May 15 letter, DHS recognized improvements but listed several concerns. Of 13 foster-care records open for more than a year, only one had a current home evaluation.

Further, only one case manager out of nine, and only one of three supervisors had more than 10 hours of the required 20 hours of training. Friendship House representatives declined to comment, but DHS records from November indicated that its supervisors were eager to fix problems and that they had requested another evaluation in three months to motivate staffers.