Community members are lobbying ahead of a City Council hearing this week for long-sought reforms to Philadelphia’s Department of Human Services, citing years of systemic problems.
The hearing, the second convened by City Council members Nina Ahmad and Cindy Bass, was sparked by a Philadelphia Journalism Collaborative investigation, published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, which exposed chronic understaffing, turnover in the workforce and the needless separation of families.
Ahmad, in preparation for Tuesday’s hearing, listened to community concerns this August at the city’s main library in a two-plus hour event at which participants offered several key criticisms.
- Poverty is not neglect: The city still separates too many families for economic reasons, calls it “neglect,” and takes children into foster care, participants said. “They’re taking people’s kids for lack of food, lack of utilities, lack of housing,” said dependency attorney Yalonda Houston, “when it’s cheaper to pay for these services than it is to pay for foster care.” Monthly stipends for foster parents range from about $890 to $1,190 per child.
- Community distrust: Families fear seeking help from DHS. “Families should be able to access resources without facing an investigation,” said April Lee, a co-founder with Houston of Philly Voice for Change, a nonprofit pushing for child welfare reform. “There needs to be some connection to resources that is based in the community — not DHS.”
- An end to “baiting” parents: Multiple participants recalled traumatic experiences with DHS and how case managers leveraged a guardian’s natural emotions — anger, grief, depression — against them. “You get upset with them because they have taken your children,” said April McBride, who successfully fought a DHS case of her own. “It becomes, ‘Oh you need anger management, a psych eval, parenting classes’ — and retaliation.” Ahmad indicated she would explore what training case managers receive to avoid taking outbursts personally.
- Improved services for older youth: Two people who experienced foster care suggested older youth need improved support as they prepare for adulthood. “I aged out some time ago,” said Duane Price, who currently does peer advocacy for transition age youth. “But now I am working with youth and I can see, not much has changed.” Price recalled a case manager had informed him he had 120 days to find independent housing. Then, during a DHS-led transition meeting for older youth, he learned he only had 90. He asked for support navigating this experience for the first time, but the case manager told him, “You’re over 18. I don’t have to do this for you.”
Participants also raised concerns about “voluntary safety plans.” In such cases, a child services investigator tells the parent to place their children with an approved relative or friend — or see them swept into foster care.
“They’re doing this without telling the parents their rights,” said Bridget Powell, who has served as a foster parent and long fought with DHS to gain custody of a niece after a safety plan.
Parents with children in voluntary safety plans receive fewer resources, yet still yield to DHS’s control over their family’s life. Families are typically not informed that they can end the plan at any time and force DHS to choose between reunification or starting an official case.
Ahmad expressed interest in requiring investigators to read families some form of Family Miranda Rights, an idea raised at the meeting by Lee.
In a subsequent interview, Ahmad said that she sees this week’s session as “the start of a process in which we can change these systemic issues.”
Recent improvements
In recent years, DHS has made significant strides.
Philadelphia’s Department of Human Services has more than halved the number of kids in foster care since 2017, while keeping fatalities and near-fatalities in line with historical rates.
The city also reduced the rate of so-called “repeat maltreatment,” in which a child who has experienced abuse or neglect is determined to have been neglected or abused again. Yet the city still separates families in poverty at a higher rate than most big cities, and inconsistent caseworker practices and performance breed distrust.
“It’s great not to separate families unnecessarily,” said Paul DiLorenzo, senior fellow at Child Welfare League of America. “But the purpose of child welfare is to provide safety, permanence and well-being for children. Are we measuring the well-being of children and families?”
This argument reflects complaints by reformers who suggest the child welfare system acts as a police agency more than a support system.
“The financial incentives that drive the system are still focused on family separation,” said Sarah Katz, director of Temple’s new Family Justice Clinic. “So the notion that it’s a benevolent system that is taking care of kids is false.”
DiLorenzo thinks the city needs to clean up some of its fundamental procedures. Philadelphia remains a national outlier in measuring its worker’s caseload sizes by total families rather than the number of children they serve. The Child Welfare League of America has recommended 12 to 15 child clients per caseworker. Philadelphia DHS, by that measure, regularly expects workers at contracted foster care agencies to handle 20 cases or more. High caseload sizes are associated with increased risks for kids in care, worker burnout and turnover.
“You have to get a handle on caseload sizes,” said DiLorenzo, “so staff have some chance to do their jobs.”
High turnover rates are common across the nation, with Philly’s stuck at 30% to 40% for a few years. New Jersey, in contrast, has invested the necessary money in staff additions and training to reduce caseload sizes and stabilize its workforce, suggesting a model.
Ahmad said she plans to explore this issue, too, going forward, and community members are responding to this push with skepticism and hope.
“We’re hopeful that something good, the true narrative will be pulled out of what parents are actually going through,” said Lee. “Our hope has been to see more parent- and family-led panels, not so much the system professionals. Hopefully, this hearing will uplift the voices of the community.”
The post Ahead of City Council hearing, councilmember hears concerns about foster care system appeared first on Billy Penn at WHYY.
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