COALITION AGAINST INSTITUTIONALIZED CHILD ABUSE
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INQUIRER INVESTIGATION
 

  CHILD WELFARE IN PHILADELPHIA - CHANGING THE CAUSE OF A TROUBLED AGENCY


  Evans will be available to answer your questions from Monday, Dec. 4 to Friday, Dec. 15. He will try to answer
  as many questions as possible. Read a profile of Evans and our continuing coverage of DHS.
 
Arthur C. Evans was tapped by Mayor Street in October to help manage the crisis at the Philadelphia Department of Human Services, which is under siege after Inquirer reports that it failed to adequately
monitor vulnerable children who died at the hands of abusive or neglectful parents. DHS officials have
said that 25 children whose families had been brought to the agency’s attention have died since 2002.

Evans, a native of Florida, has a Ph.D. in psychology and ran Philadelphia’s mental health department
before being named to his current post. (Click here for coverage).


  Arthur Evans

  Tell The Inquirer your story
  People working together is what will help bring about awareness and change. CAICA commends reporters Ken
  Dilanian and John Sullivan at the Philadelphia Enquirer for their continued coverage of problems in the DHS system
  in Pennsylvania. If you have a story about DHS they want to hear it. Contact staff writer Ken Dilanian at 215-854-4779
  or kdilanian@phillynews.com. Contact staff writer John Sullivan at 215-854-2473 or johnsullivan@phillynews.com.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 
Inquirer Investigation: 'Bury Your Mistakes'
Three years after a string of blunders by DHS was widely blamed for failing to prevent the torture-murder of toddler Porchia Bennett, an Inquirer investigation has found that young children are still regularly abused to death after coming to the attention of DHS.
Post a Comment
 
 
On the DHS front lines

Caseworkers cope with poverty, abuse — and the fallout from children’s deaths.
Paula Soloman parallel-parked her hulking city-issued van into a tight space in front of the weathered white house. Finally, she thought, she was going to meet the elusive Nakesha Bridges.
 
LATEST STORY
At DHS, mounting failures left girl to die
Almost from the day she was born - three months premature, suffering from cerebral palsy, weighing just 1 pound, 4 ounces - the adults in her life kept letting Danieal Kelly down.
 
 
RESOURCES
How You Can Help
If you have suspicions that a child is being abused or neglected, there are several hotlines to call to report the information.
 
Tell The Inquirer your story
If you have a story about DHS, we want to hear it. Contact staff writer Ken Dilanian at 215-854-4779 or kdilanian@phillynews.com. Contact staff writer John Sullivan at 215-854-2473 or johnsullivan@phillynews.com.
 
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Child-abuse cases in Philadelphia
This graphic shows statistics on reports of child abuse, child-abuse deaths, cases of neglect and youths placed in out-of-home care.
 
RECENT STORIES
  • DHS gave psychologist a contract despite his problems
    Psychologist Earle D. McNeill lost his state certification as a drug and alcohol counselor after his conviction for punching and kicking his girlfriend.
     
  • On the DHS front lines
    Paula Soloman parallel-parked her hulking city-issued van into a tight space in front of the weathered white house. Finally, she thought, she was going to meet the elusive Nakesha Bridges.
     
  • 5 named to DHS review board
    Three national experts, a local pediatrician, and an activist lawyer have been named to round out Mayor Street's panel that will recommend how to overhaul Philadelphia's troubled child-protection agency.
     
  • New chief reaching out to fix city's DHS
    Arthur Evans stepped back from the filth-crusted stoop of a rowhouse in one of Philadelphia's slums and took in the view. Fist-size holes splintered half of the windows. A garish green mask of paint peeled off the pocked stucco walls. No one answered repeated knocks on the door, but upstairs, one room was lit by a bare lightbulb hanging from a wire.
     
  • City won't release DHS data
    Despite a recent promise of openness by Philadelphia's new child-welfare commissioner, the Street administration is refusing to make public the city's internal reviews of child-abuse deaths.
     
  • Council votes to investigate DHS, abuse deaths
    Philadelphia City Council voted unanimously yesterday to authorize hearings to investigate the Department of Human Services' handling of child-abuse deaths. The first hearing is tentatively scheduled for Dec. 13.
     
  • Firm with ties to DHS investigated
    A federal grand jury is investigating whether a social-services contractor defrauded taxpayers when it charged millions of dollars to monitor hundreds of vulnerable children - including a 14-year-old girl who died of neglect during an August heat wave.
     
  • DHS moves swiftly on review
    In what he calls an effort to "begin to reestablish the credibility of this agency," Philadelphia's new child welfare commissioner has launched a plan to step up the monitoring of millions of dollars in contracts and revisit each child under the city's care.
     
  • Street names panel to assess DHS
    Promising the city will do a better job protecting children in danger of abuse, Mayor Street is pushing for sweeping reforms.
     
  • Teen under DHS care: A fugitive
    Throughout the summer, a city-paid caseworker visited the home of a troubled 17-year-old named Braheem Burke to make sure he was OK.
     
  • Girl wasted away under DHS care
    Fourteen-year-old Danieal Kelly, bedridden and nearly paralyzed with cerebral palsy, wasted away in her stifling Mantua apartment, gaping bedsores exposing her bones. When she died, she weighed just 46 pounds.
     
  • Pa. to file on child tragedies
    A bill requiring the state Department of Public Welfare to submit findings about each case of child abuse or neglect that results in a child's death or serious injury was sent to Gov. Rendell after unanimous passage in the House last night.
     
  • New boss brings team-building skill, if not child-welfare expertise, to DHS
    Arthur C. Evans Jr., Mayor Street's pick to lead the beleaguered Department of Human Services, knows plenty about about mental health - his speciality - but little about child welfare.
     
  • Workers walk in protest
    Social workers at the Department of Human Services walked off the job Friday after learning that their boss, Commissioner Cheryl Ransom-Garner, had resigned and Deputy Commissioner John McGee had been fired.
     
  • DHS leader and deputy ousted
    Mayor Street forced out two top officials at the city's child-welfare agency Friday, acknowledging that his administration had not done enough to protect children from being killed by child abuse.
     
  • The pique behind the scenes on DHS
    Last Sunday, Mayor Street sent an e-mail to his closest advisers. He was disturbed, sources said, by The Inquirer's investigation into how his Department of Human Services had handled the cases of children who were later killed.
     
  • State DPW will review child deaths
    Pennsylvania's welfare secretary is reviewing the actions of the city Department of Human Services in the wake of The Inquirer's report about child-abuse deaths, she said yesterday.
     
  • Editorial | Training and Transparency
    Grown-ups often tiptoe around sleeping children. It makes good sense. Little ones need ample rest, and tiptoeing allows the adults to have a little free time.
     
  • Law would reduce secrecy about child-abuse deaths
    Gov. Rendell and Pennsylvania lawmakers were moving yesterday toward legislation that would for the first time require the state to tell the public details about each child-abuse death - but only the bare minimum needed to comply with a federal law.
     
  • Hearings urged on DHS conduct
    State and local elected officials called yesterday for hearings into the conduct of Philadelphia's Department of Human Services (DHS), the $600 million agency that investigates child abuse.
    Post a Comment

     
  • Father charged with killing baby son
    The father of a year-old North Philadelphia boy has been charged with beating the child to death. Authorities said yesterday there was evidence that the boy might have been abused in the past.
     
  • Details of Porchia case's failures emerge
    In the months after the torture-murder of 3-year-old Porchia Bennett, top officials at the Department of Human Services spoke of the 2003 case as a shattering event that would change the culture at the agency.
     
  • DHS 'death reviews' are kept confidential
    When a child on the Department of Human Services' watch is killed by a caregiver, city and state officials comb through case files and interview social workers to find out what went wrong.

 

 

 

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