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Council presses DHS after acknowledged placement 'misstep'; commissioner outlines family-engagement and review practices
Summary
Councilmembers pressed Department of Human Services Commissioner Kimberly Ali about a case the council and media described as a misstep in child placement. Ali described the removal and court process, family team conferencing and recent family-engagement initiatives while pledging case reviews and potential training or policy changes.
City Council questioned the Philadelphia Department of Human Services on a high-profile child-placement error during the Committee of the Whole budget hearing, seeking specific corrective steps after the department publicly acknowledged the incident.
Councilmember Nina Ahmad said constituents called the case "legal kidnapping" and described a child placed with an unrelated family after an apparent failure to prioritize kinship placement. Ahmad asked DHS Commissioner Kimberly Ali to explain what went wrong and what the department has changed to prevent a recurrence.
Commissioner Ali, constrained by confidentiality, declined to discuss case specifics but described the formal removal and hearing process: a detention hearing within 72 hours, an adjudicatory hearing at 10 days, and court reviews every three months thereafter. She said removal is handled by DHS social workers with supervisory, legal and court coordination and that the department engages parents, relatives and the child (when age-appropriate) about placement preferences.
Ali said the department conducts family-team conferencing and crisis rapid-response teamings and that family team conferencing has been in practice in Philadelphia since 2015. She noted a family engagement initiative begun in 2020 in partnership with the courts and the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts to convene crisis-response teamings within 24–72 hours of a crisis.
When pressed about the specific "misstep" — a worker who, according to council members, called a hospital against department policy — Ali said leadership responded immediately, attended hearings and assembled operational reviews to determine whether additional training or policy changes were necessary. She said systemic or individual practice issues trigger team meetings with operations leadership and deputy commissioners to determine education, policy issuance or other corrective steps.
Several councilmembers — including Councilmember Cindy Bass — told the commissioner those changes should have been instituted earlier and argued for stronger, day-to-day safeguards because placement errors can have lasting harms to children and families. Bass and others asked for evidence that corrective actions are not just ad hoc but embedded into daily practice and oversight.
Ali said DHS will continue to evaluate and master the basics of case practice, escalate to higher-level leadership where necessary and ensure family-team conferencing is tracked by performance management technology so missed conferences are identified and remedied. Councilmembers asked for follow-up on the specific measures the department will take and the results of any internal reviews.
The committee recorded the exchange as a request for DHS to provide more detail on corrective steps, policy clarifications and how the department will ensure consistent application of family-team conference practices when kinship care is available.
