The Department of Human Services contracts with a large network of agencies to provide services to children and families. These providers partner with the Department to ensure the safety of children in DHS care and are an integral part of Philadelphia’s child protection system. Thus, a major component of the Department’s reform effort involves ensuring appropriate accountability and oversight of this provider network. DHS is building on its existing evaluation infrastructure and placing greater emphasis on outcomes and service quality, in addition to administrative compliance. Some of the steps the Department has already taken include:

Validation of provider visits: DHS has begun making random quality assurance calls to families in order to ensure that the provider is making required visits and that services are addressing the family’s needs. Calls to 128 families are being made each month. When a family reports a problem, both the agency and the DHS social worker serving the family are notified and follow-up with the family occurs. To date, 350 interviews have been completed. Seventy-five percent of families contacted have reported a positive experience with their Services to Children in their Own Home (SCOH) provider worker and note no concerns. In a few instances, these calls have revealed weaknesses in the system that needed to be addressed. For example some families reported not receiving a visit for a few weeks because their social worker had left the agency and a new one had not yet been assigned. In each of these cases, DHS analysts followed-up with the provider agency, a new worker was immediately assigned and visits occurred within the week.

Enhanced contract standards: As of July 1st, DHS implemented more rigorous contract standards for providers of SCOH. These new standards require a more intensive focus on safety and require providers to report critical incidents to DHS within two hours. Critical incidents include: birth of a child, death of a family member, hospitalization, serious injury, serious illness, serious accident, report of abuse or neglect, and/or the child reporting that he or she is fearful of people living in the home. Other changes to the contract standards include:

• SCOH workers are now required to service every child who is living in the home, even if that child had not been identified in the initial report.
• The length of provider visits is now clearly specified based on the level of service being provided.
• Providers are now required to meet with school staff when children have behavioral academic or attendance issues
• Providers are now required to initiate service within 2 business days of SCOH acceptance unless a more urgent response time is requested at referral.