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    A community journalism project dedicated to exploring the foster care system, prioritizing community involvement and conducted with an unprecedented level of thoroughness not previously seen in media coverage of this topic.

    Steve Volk is Resolve’s solutions investigative editor who leads this project. Our Kids is funded with support from the Stoneleigh Foundation.

    Protesters carry a sign at a May 2022 protest at LOVE Park after City Council released a scathing reports on the Department of Human Services’ lapses in caring for children. (Josh Childs)

    Will Philly finally fix its foster care system?

    For years, people with intimate knowledge of foster care practices at the Department of Human Services cited similar problems: random and subjective decision-making, the confusion of poverty and neglect, an unstable workforce riven by turnover — and more.

    Dentro del sistema de acogida oculto de Filadelfia, donde los padres ceden a sus hijos “voluntariamente”

    En el otoño de 2021, Tytianna Hawthorne recibió un mensaje telefónico de un investigador del Departamento de Servicios Humanos de Filadelfia: alguien podría haber maltratado a su hija de un […]

    Philly took $5 million in foster children’s Social Security payments

    That money, however, was being collected by Philadelphia’s Department of Human Services.

    Bill would bar Philly from keeping Social Security payments…

    Gym’s legislation would end the practice, requiring the city to save the money for the youths…

    In the Child Welfare System, Black Families Should Matter

    “I was like, ‘I didn’t do anything wrong. You know that now, and you’re still keeping my kids?’”

    Philly still keeps the benefits of foster care youths despite a 2022 law banning the practice

    Despite the city’s new law, DHS acknowledges it’s still keeping the money meant for foster kids — about $1.3 million in Social Security benefits for 380 children in a typical year.

    In 2020, Steve received an assignment to cover the foster care system. No one told him how difficult it would be: reluctant sources, an opaque bureaucracy tucked behind privacy barriers, decades of problematic media coverage to understand and overcome. These guides are meant to help anyone interested in writing about the system to avoid a lot of the pitfalls that consumed him at the start.