DHS pace of change is slammed

Three months after a state report faulted the city's Department of Human Services for failing to meet federal standards for protecting children, Pennsylvania's secretary of public welfare said the agency had not moved fast enough to reform.

"We are trying to create a sense of urgency in Philadelphia," Estelle Richman said Monday. "They need to see this as a matter of life and death, and not just a matter of process."

The report, issued in February, demanded that the agency make changes by the end of this month. The state reviewed 80 cases where the city paid private child-welfare agencies to visit children in their own homes and said the city's performance was wanting in every category. The findings come despite five years of alleged improvements, including changes made in the first part of the year.

"Many of the same issues and concerns continue to be and have not been remedied by new DHS policy and practice," Richman wrote in a Feb. 27 letter to Acting DHS Commissioner Arthur C. Evans Jr.

"We can no longer wait to act on improving the quality of services provided to the children and families in Philadelphia." The state licenses county human services programs.

Evans, who took over DHS in October, said the state's report mirrored the agency's self-assessment. Many of the changes have been planned or put in place since he received the report, he said. All will be under way by the May 27 deadline, he added.

"If you're on the inside of this agency for more than a day, you know we're moving as fast as any agency can move," he said in response to the letter.

In a statement issued in response to Richman's comments, Evans' spokesman, Frank Keel, said, "DHS in the process of addressing systemic societal issues and imperfect systems that have existed for generations. It is unrealistic to think we can turn things around in what amounts to a blink of an eye."

Safety of the children, he said, has been his top priority.

For Evans and the rest of the staff at DHS, the challenge is to make sure years of promised fixes are finally carried out.

Over the past 20 years, a series of child deaths has rocked the agency, and prompted advocates and politicians to call for change.