For years, advocates and insiders have raised alarm about persistent problems in Philadelphia’s foster care system, including inconsistent decision-making, the conflation of poverty with neglect, and a workforce plagued by high turnover rates.
Recent investigations, prompted by a Philadelphia Journalism Collaborative series published in the Philadelphia Inquirer, have now galvanized City Council members to take action.
The investigation highlighted numerous lawsuits against the city’s community umbrella agencies (CUAs), which are private organizations contracted by the Department of Human Services (DHS) to provide foster care and related services.
These lawsuits revealed issues such as chronic understaffing, employee turnover, and the unnecessary separation of families, problems that trace back to DHS policies.
In response, City Council, spearheaded by at-large councilmember Nina Ahmad, moved to hold hearings on the foster care system, scheduled to begin on June 6.
Councilmember Cindy Bass has additionally called for a special committee to revisit past work she conducted on DHS.
“We’ve been talking about the same problems in the child welfare system for 30 years,” remarked Cathleen Palm, founder of the Center for Children’s Justice.
Her sentiment reflects a broader frustration over the stagnation of efforts to improve a system that many believe could be readily fixed if solutions were implemented.
Activists and parents with firsthand experience of the foster care system argue that existing reports have already identified the necessary changes, particularly a comprehensive 52-page report released by a Special Committee on Child Separations in April 2022.
Co-chaired by Bass and then councilman David Oh, the report presented over three dozen recommendations targeting DHS and the City Council, aimed at resolving the persistent issues of family separation and inadequate support services.
“This report has almost everything you need to see. It just needs to be implemented,” stated Pat Albright, co-founder of the Crossroads Women’s Center.
Bass described her new initiative as a “resuscitation” of the committee’s earlier findings, stressing the urgent need to evaluate the current state of family separations in Philadelphia.
The initial report revealed that poverty-related issues are frequently misclassified as neglect, leading to unnecessary family separations.
“Unfortunately, in the cases reviewed by the Committee, there were hardly any instances of strong questioning and intervention by the courts on behalf of families facing removal,” noted the findings.
Recommendations included granting public and media access to Family Court proceedings, investing in quality legal defense for families involved with DHS, halting separations in cases of domestic violence, and crucially, disallowing family separations where financial support could resolve issues.
Activists like Jones and Albright highlight that families are often separated over issues like truancy and unstable housing, situations primarily driven by poverty.
“It’s traumatic to separate children from parents,” Jones pointed out, emphasizing the need to reconsider such actions in the context of economic hardship.
April Lee of Philly Voice for Change echoed similar sentiments, expressing a desire for a child welfare system that prioritizes the dignity of parents and communities.
She called for improved data collection regarding voluntary safety plans in cases where parents feel coerced into relinquishing custody, as hinted in the Inquirer series.
Moreover, she advocated for greater community engagement in defining available services, insisting that poverty should not be treated as a DHS issue but rather something that communities can and should address together.
Councilmember Ahmad’s focus on the CUAs is particularly significant, as they were established in 2012 to provide community-based services and support families, yet she now questions their efficacy.
Her recent resolution serves to highlight systemic failures within the CUA framework, such as lack of oversight, excessive caseloads, and inadequate resource allocation, all of which threaten the safety of vulnerable children.
David Fair, CEO of Turning Points, supports the idea that the CUA system can work but insists that it requires a paradigm shift from traditional DHS practices.
“It should represent real change,” Fair argued, underscoring that the CUAs have the capacity for accountability since they can be sued for failures, unlike the city government.
This legal vulnerability, he believes, offers families a pathway for redress and enhances transparency in the system.
Mimi Laver, chief of the child advocacy unit at the Defender Association of Philadelphia, criticized the CUAs for failing to meet the community engagement objectives they were intended to achieve.
Her observations, drawn from representing clients involved with the foster care system, reveal a disjointed and inconsistent service delivery, further complicating families’ experiences within the system.
Laver noted that variations in guidance and resources provided by different CUAs often leave families confused and unsupported.
“There’s a lot of randomness built into the system,” she explained, highlighting the detrimental impact of varying caseworkers and investigators.
There lies a demand for clearer accountability metrics for the CUAs, as current scorecards provide only limited insights into the effectiveness of their operations.
“There’s no way to know what the ratings signify,” said Marni Gangel, policy director of child advocacy, stressing the need for transparency in services provided and the metrics used for evaluation.
Additionally, Laver and Gangel emphasize the importance of reducing the foster care population, increasing reunification rates, and fostering a stable workforce that remains in place long enough to provide consistent support to families.
“There is a culture that needs changing,” Laver asserted, calling for a comprehensive conversation about necessary reforms to create a system that consistently meets the needs of the children and families involved.
The emerging investigations and the renewed focus on Philadelphia’s child welfare system may be a turning point, yet stakeholders await concrete action to address the long-standing issues afflicting the foster care system.
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