Compiled by Pennsylvania Partnerships for Children, a statewide child-advocacy group in Harrisburg, the report was released yesterday.
"I am proud of the progress that has been made over the last two years and . . . [the report] shows that we . . . are on the right path in our reform efforts," wrote Anne Marie Ambrose, commissioner of the city's Department of Human Services, in an e-mail last night.
Ambrose, who took over DHS in June, has said she was working to implement changes in an agency laid low by a July grand-jury report that concluded that DHS practices and personnel contributed to the death of 14-year-old Kelly. Her parents, as well as two DHS caseworkers and two employees of a private agency hired by DHS to visit the girl, face criminal charges in her death.
In the main thrust of its findings, the Partnerships report found that within a year of release from foster care, 43 percent of children are back in the system in Philadelphia, compared with 28.6 of children throughout the state. Among Philadelphia children 13 to 15, the reentry rate is 60 percent.
The report found that seven Philadelphia children died from child abuse in 2007. Deputy Mayor and Health Commissioner Don Schwarz, who oversees DHS, said yesterday that he had studied the deaths and determined that none of the children who died in 2007 had been under DHS's care.
"They were not children known to DHS," he said.
Schwarz added that he had not studied the 16 child-abuse deaths that occurred in 2006, one of which was that of Danieal Kelly. "I wasn't around then," he said.
Last night, Stacey Witalec, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Public Welfare, said the agency determined that six of the 16 children had been receiving DHS services in their homes.
