Center's abuses didn't deter DHS

Today just a dozen children from Illinois are placed outside the state.

"Children just perform better closer to home," said Kendall Marlowe, an Illinois child-service official.

Philadelphia's acting DHS commissioner, Evans, agrees. He wants to reduce the number of children placed out of state.

"It's a very high priority for me," Evans said. "We send too many kids away from Philadelphia."

One of those kids was Omega Leach.

A month before he died, a therapist placed a note in his file. "Omega is frustrated with being placed so far from home," the therapist wrote.

"But he has expressed the desire to complete the program successfully so that he can return home and start working on getting his life together."

A Key City Report, Uncensored

In 2005, an investigator for the city wrote a detailed report focusing on the Chad Youth Enhancement Center in Tennessee.

The city made the report public at The Inquirer's request. Before releasing it, however, city lawyers removed the most explosive section - pages with allegations that Philadelphia children were being abused at Chad.

In redacting the document, the city cited an exemption in Pennsylvania's right-to-know law that allows governments to withhold investigations, even finished ones, from the public.

The Inquirer later obtained a complete version of the report. In this version, the only information removed is the names of children.

To read both the censored and unaltered versions, plus previous articles about the troubled city Department of Human Services, go to

For previous articles on the Department of Human Services, plus video and documents, go to http://go.philly.com/dhsdocs