Following an increase in recent years of child fatalities that were potentially abuse-related, including several that attracted considerable media attention, in November 2006 Mayor John F. Street appointed a panel of national and local child welfare experts to conduct a department-wide analysis of child welfare safety processes and practices and identify recommendations targeted at improving the safety of Philadelphia’s children. This effort cut across all categories of child welfare programs and processes in Philadelphia, including child abuse and maltreatment investigations; substitute care programs, such as foster care and residential treatment facilities; and programs that provide intensive services in their own homes. In addition to analyzing these programs to understand the extent to which they protect children, the effort also undertook a review of the city’s contracting provisions with child welfare services providers; analyzed the child death review process – including how recommendations were filtered back into policy; and also looked at casework practices such as safety assessments and provision of ongoing monitoring services.
The panel selected WRMA to provide assistance in completing the study’s tasks. WRMA performed tasks that supported the entire set of cross-cutting research and analysis activities undertaken by the panel. Some of the activities performed by WRMA included:
- Assisting the panel with the formulation of the research plan;
- Conducting primary and secondary research, which included
- Interviewing staff to understand their perceptions on how DHS practices impact child safety;
- Analyzing multiple years of program administrative data to identify trends in child welfare indicators;
- Reviewing all child fatalities that were possibly due to maltreatment and that occurred between 2002 and 2006;
- Analyzing DHS’ mechanisms for contracting with and monitoring the performance of private providers;
- Reviewing the child safety assessments conducted internally by DHS;
- Reviewing the efforts and documentation from prior reform efforts to analyze whether recommendations had been implemented and if so, how they improved child safety; and
- Organizing and facilitating focus groups with non-profit service providers, caseworkers, and other service partners and stakeholders
- Developing cross-cutting strategies targeted at improving child safety practices and procedures;
- Identifying leadership and communication strategies to improve internal and external communications among DHS staff and its service partners; and
- Documenting the panel’s efforts and recommendations in a Final Report.
The panel, with WRMA assistance, recommended changes intended to improve the safety of children involved with DHS. Recommendations targeted areas that included DHS’ mission and values, practice, accountability structure, and leadership. All of the recommendations were adopted by Executive Order of Mayor Street.
Subsequent to the initial efforts of the panel, the WRMA team was awarded a second contract by the city to assist with the implementation and monitoring of the recommendations. For the last two years (2007-2009), WRMA has worked closely with the Community Oversight Board (COB – the successor organization to the Panel) to track the progress of DHS’ implementation of the recommendations. WRMA has particularly assisted with efforts to review and analyze the implementation of several new practice initiatives; including a team-based decision making process that incorporates DHS staff from several program areas. WRMA also has monitored reforms to the safety assessment process, the review of child fatalities by a newly formed cross-program workgroup, and has assisted with a review of DHS-wide paperwork requirements, in which WRMA recommended ways to consolidate the paperwork requirements and reduce the burden on DHS social workers.
