Philadelphia Department of Human Services Community Oversight Board Meeting October 28, 2016

There are some adjustments going on in Philadelphia Department of Human Services to better serve the families who have come in contact with the department. What was reported during a public meeting was that Philadelphia is making the necessary changes within the infrastructure of the systems that make up DHS. I learned of these changes four years ago during a community discussion held at our Philadelphia Library, One Book One Philadelphia Orphan Train series. Was glad to learn that Gary Williams, Chief Learning Officer at DHS is helping to improve DHS. He always seems a bit stressed, and i guess his job of fixing the broken system could be a bit stressful. So much confidence in Mr. Williams was shown today and i do like what is happening to support our families.

The hotline referrals and investigations continue to grow but there is work being done to screen these referrals and investigations to see if the referrals necessarily need to be addressed by DHS. Members of DHS will be visiting New Jersey and Pittsburgh to learn about their preventive techniques. We learned that many of the investigative units are still under staffed. Case workers may have to do some investigating to fill in for the short staffing. There is a push to get more investigators and have case workers with the maxium of ten cases at a time. Currently our case workers are at 10 to 16 cases with the assistance of the Community Umbrella Agencies.

(Example of the CUA's support services)

During the report back on the progress of the CUA's we learned about how effective the partnerships are. The CUA's help with prevention of removal of children from families, by connecting families to resources needed to keep them together. This is a young and growing relationship between DHS and the CUA's. Also mentioned was the young workforce coming into the caseworker field and how they may not be mature enough to separate their personal beliefs/feelings from the families that they serve. A suggestion was to have these caseworkers trained by supervisors who can monitor and help these caseworkers recognize protocol versus personal decisions. Former Mayor Wilson Goode and Arthur C. Evans, Jr., Ph.D. – Commissioner, DBHIDS also expressed their years of advocacy and the need for role model training. We were told that in New Jersey they do mock trainings to help their staff learn the various situations that the staff may encounter and how to handle the situation.

I was advocating for a family who are victims of domestic violence and wanted to know how could the mother and family be punished when they are victims. i was told that mothers can lose their children if there is domestic violence in the home because the mother is unable to protect the children. My argument was that the mother is a victim also and should not be victimized by DHS, the family needs help. There was mentioned that our Mayor Jim Kenney is also concerned about domestic violence in Philadelphia and looking to build more resources to address that issue. Commissioner Cynthia Figueroa stated that if they were to pull data by domestic violence that would probably be a big chunk of their cases. Makes sense to me that DHS would be able to focus on the families of domestic violence with support services versus pulling them apart. i received cards from First Deputy Commissioner Jessica Shapiro who can be reached at 215.683.6010 jessica.shapiro@phila.gov and Deputy Commissioner Kimberly Ali 215.683.6014 kimberly.ali@phila.gov and will be contacting them to see how we can better serve families of domestic violence.



i also met Ms. Phyllis Stevens, Executive Director of "Together as Adoptive Parents, Inc."They offer support groups, respite care centers, tutors, subsidy information, therapists and more resources. We have a demand for great foster parents because for whatever reason some families are not able to reunite.

The best news was that more families are being reconnected sooner. There is work to not have our youth in shelters for long periods of time. Our homeless youth are getting more support through Supervised Independent Care and Waivers to help support their transitions.