The legislation would end a legal but controversial practice of transferring the money into the city’s $5 billion general fund. | From: The Inquirer (Read more.)
The agency took in nearly $5 million in children’s Social Security benefits between fiscal years 2016 and 2020 that belonged to hundreds of youth in foster care, according to records obtained by Resolve Philly and The Inquirer through a Right to Know request. Then DHS swept the money into the city’s $5 billion general fund. | From: The Inquirer (Read more.)
Kids face less long-term trauma when they live with kin instead of foster families. Yet despite promising kinship placement models elsewhere and signs of improvement, Philadelphia’s child welfare system still appears biased against families. | From: Next City (Read more.)
Pairing families with social worker and parent advocates to help navigate the system has shown promise. But in Philadelphia, problems persist with racial bias and disregard for families. | From: Next City (Read more.)
State law requires that caseworkers place children who were removed from their parents with kin—but Philly lags behind Los Angeles and Lackawanna County in getting the job done. | From: The Citizen (Read more.)
Youth aging out of foster care are at risk of housing instability. Engaging youth to find solutions is the trend in social service, but is Philadelphia doing all it can? | From: Next City (Read more.)
Lamb’s travails began in late December, after her four-month old baby boy fell out of bed, waking her with his crying. The Department of Human Services was summoned, taking Lamb’s infant and her 16-month-old boy, too. | From: Next City (Read more.)
The $1.1 million in federal funding is being distributed via $200 gift cards. | From: Billy Penn (Read more.)
Built to err on the side of caution for kids, the child welfare system often manifests as a punitive and intrusive force, particularly toward Black families, who are statistically more likely to be referred for investigations and more likely to have their kids taken into foster care when compared to white families. As a result, reformers and abolitionists are demanding that the system be reformed, even wholly reimagined. They frame this cause in the language of the Black Lives Matter movement — a cry to preserve Black families against a system built to separate them. | From: Next City (Read more.)
Two county agencies, in New York and Michigan, have tried new approaches to correct for the disproportionate presence of Black and Brown families in the system. The results show promise, even as they raise questions about what more can be done. | From: Next City (Read more.)
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