Audit Report on the Program Compliance of the Harlem Dowling-West Side Center for Children and Family Services with Its Administration for Children’s Services Preventive Service Agreement

AUDIT REPORT IN BRIEF

The objective of this audit was to determine whether Harlem Dowling-West Side Center for Children and Family Services (Harlem Dowling) complied with certain key service provisions of its preventive service agreement with the New York City Administration for Children’s Services (ACS) and its own procedures with regard to the preventive services provided at the Queens Outreach Center.

Harlem Dowling, a not-for-profit child welfare agency, provides preventive services to families under a purchase-of-service agreement with ACS.  The general preventive services provided by Harlem Dowling, either directly or by referral, address the following areas: day care, homemaking, parent training, domestic violence, housing, job training, and health coverage. Harlem Dowling’s four-year agreement with ACS covers the period January 1, 2006, through December 31, 2009.  The agreement totals $12,179,654 and requires Harlem Dowling to provide general preventive services to a maximum of 300 families (75 families at each of its four sites).  There are four centers, two in Manhattan (the Central Harlem Center and the West Side Center) and two in Queens (the Far Rockaway Center and the Queens Outreach Center).  This audit concentrated on the controls of the Queens Outreach Center.

Audit Findings and Conclusions

Harlem Dowling did not adequately comply with significant provisions of its preventive service agreement with ACS or its own procedures.  Therefore, there is no reasonable assurance that Harlem Dowling properly helped families at the Queens Outreach Center to obtain the preventive services needed to become stabilized and to reduce the risk that their children might be placed in foster care.  We believe that a major factor that allowed deficiencies to exist was Harlem Dowling’s failure to adequately oversee the operations at its Queens Outreach Center.  The conditions noted include the following:

• General preventive service case records did not contain all required Family Assessment and Service Plans (FASPs) and Progress Notes;

• The required number of minimum casework contacts with the families was not always conducted;

• Casework Supervisors did not always document their review of case records in case record review forms, as required;

• Some families’ needs do not appear to have been met;

• No evidence that some of the employees had the required work experience when hired; and

• No evidence that some of the employees required to be fingerprinted were in fact fingerprinted when hired and, for those employees who could not be fingerprinted, that the required criminal-history records reviews were conducted.

We believe that the City, and more important, the families served, may not have received the full contractual benefit from the preventive service agreement because of problems noted in the audit.

Audit Recommendations

Based on our findings, we make six recommendations, three of which are listed below.  Harlem Dowling should:

• Strengthen its oversight of the Queens Outreach Center to ensure that it improves Case Planners’ performance with regard to the adequate and timely preparation of all required FASPs and Progress Notes.  FASPs and Progress Notes should be maintained in CONNECTIONS and/or the hard-copy case record, as required, based on the type of case.  In addition, Harlem Dowling should ensure that it improves the performance of the Casework Supervisor and the Director in overseeing Case Planners’ review and signing all required FASPs.  It also should ensure that the Case Planners make the minimum number of casework contacts with the families and document in the case records their diligent attempts to address the needs of the families identified in the FASPs.

• Strengthen its oversight of the Queens Outreach Center to ensure that case record reviews are conducted and documented monthly, as required, for the duration of the cases and that administrative-level reviews are conducted and documented for cases that remain open 24 months or longer.  In addition, it needs to ensure that the needs of the families identified in the FASPs have been met and Plan Amendments are approved prior to closing the general preventive service cases and discontinuing services.

• Comply with the personnel provisions of its preventive service agreement with ACS and ensure that all current and prospective employees have the related work experience required for their positions and that it submits fingerprints of all prospective employees to State Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS).

ACS and Harlem Dowling Response

ACS and Harlem Dowling officials generally agreed with the audit’s recommendations and have either implemented them or plan to implement them.