Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Danieal Kelly: On the Books (Case File)

On 4 August 2006, in the middle of a record heat wave, an ambulance was called to an apartment in West Philadelphia. Danieal Kelly, fourteen, had been dead for several hours. She had cerebral palsy and weighed about forty-two pounds. The grand jury wrote that in her last days she begged for something to drink, until she could manage only one word: water.

Danieal was not hidden from the authorities. The city's Department of Human Services had opened seven investigations into her family. A private contractor was being paid with public money to visit her home at least twice a week.

This is the case file on Danieal Kelly. I start with who she was before the system lost her. In Phoenix she sang and went to an award-winning school, and one teacher called her "one of the sweetest students ever enrolled in this program." I trace the years of DHS contact, the private agency whose caseworker had the mother sign forms for visits that hadn't happened, and the fact that she was never enrolled in a Philadelphia school. I cover the grand jury's 258-page report and its central finding: a workplace where failure was rewarded with promotion, not punished. I follow the prosecutions, which came in several rounds:

• Andrea Kelly pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and received twenty to forty years.
• Daniel Kelly, the caseworker Dana Poindexter and the contractor's director each received two and a half to five years in 2011.
• Laura Sommerer received probation.
• The agency's founders were convicted of fraud in federal court.
• No supervisor was ever charged.

I say plainly what I couldn't find, including Andrea Kelly's current parole status and the terms of the civil settlement.

I also draw on more than fourteen years of social work practice to look at six areas: invisibility, paper that replaces reality, the cumulative record, monitoring of private providers, accountability, and what a child protection system owes a child who cannot speak for herself. The episode ends with questions for professionals.

Chapters (approximate):

• Cold open: the heat wave and the ambulance
• Who Danieal was: Youngstown, Phoenix and the girl who sang
• Her parents and the move to Philadelphia
• Seven investigations
• MultiEthnic: the contractor and the blank forms
• The people at DHS
• Her last days
• The cover-up and the grand jury report
• The prosecutions
• The federal fraud case
• Six strands for professionals
• Questions to take back to your practice

Content note: The episode discusses the abuse and death of a child. The script deliberately leaves out some details from the court record. Discretion advised