Philly toddler apparently drowned in bath as foster mother ‘at her max’ tended the microwave
Case managers said the Harrowgate foster mom was already caring for three kids under the age of 4.
The Philadelphia police special victims unit is investigating the death of a child who apparently drowned in a bathtub when his foster mother left him unattended to go to the microwave.
Records obtained by The Inquirer and Resolve Philly show that a Harrowgate foster parent left 19-month-old Sy’vir Hill and a second child unsupervised and returned to find Sy’vir submerged in the water.
Police officers who responded to the April 15 incident counted six children in the home, the maximum allowed in a foster home under state law, according to emails sent among child welfare workers. The foster mother’s name was not released; authorities have not determined the cause of death.
The child was under the care of a community umbrella agency, known as a CUA, part of a network of private companies that the Philadelphia Department of Human Services contracts to provide in-home and foster care services to children and families.
Since their inception 12 years ago, CUAs have faced at least 69 lawsuits for the abuse and neglect of children in their care, triggering more than 50 settlements or verdicts of $1 million or more and a crisis of rising insurance premiums.
An Inquirer series published in April traced the problems underlying the wave of lawsuits to workforce turnover and vacancies, the placement of children with medical needs with untrained foster parents, and a system overwhelmed with too many kids in foster care — all issues that predate the CUAs by decades.
The series prompted City Councilmember-at-large Nina Ahmad to call for hearings, which are scheduled to begin Friday, and Councilmember Cindy Bass to reconvene a special committee to investigate Philadelphia’s family-separation policies.
» READ MORE: Inside Philly’s hidden foster care system, where parents ‘voluntarily’ give up their children
Regan Kelly, president and CEO of NET Centers, which runs the CUA responsible for the child’s care, did not respond to requests to be interviewed for this article. NET Centers has been sued four times over children’s deaths since 2017.
“What were we doing here?” asked attorney A.J. Thomson, who is exploring a possible lawsuit on behalf of Sy’vir Hill’s estate. “This child was placed in a home where his life was less important than whatever delicacy was in the microwave.”
DHS Commissioner Kimberly Ali said by email in response to questions: “We are incredibly saddened to learn of the death of Sy’vir Hill. We offer our sincere condolences to the family on this tragic loss.”
Email exchanges among child welfare staffers working on Sy’vir’s case show that case managers described the foster parent as “at her max” and already caring for three kids under the age of 4. But upon review, the caseworkers determined that the home had enough bedrooms to continue to accommodate Sy’vir and a new placement: his newborn sister.
State law calls for siblings to be placed together when possible, and caseworkers described the foster parent as having a “strong support base.”
» READ MORE: How Philly can look to New Jersey to fix its child welfare system
Cathleen Palm, founder of the Center for Children’s Justice, a group dedicated to promoting the physical and emotional well-being of Pennsylvania’s children, said the maximum number of kids allowed in a foster home might need to be reviewed. But she cautioned against a rush to judgment.
“It sounds like the [caseworkers] were well-intentioned and followed state law,” she said. “And when we’ve got so many cases where you can clearly see the handwriting was on the wall that there was likely to be a problem here, I’m not sure this is one of those cases.”
The Inquirer’s April series featured the case of Su’Layah Williams, who was separated from her mother by social service workers even though an alleged burn was determined to be just a skin condition. Su’Layah was placed in a home where, months shy of her third birthday, she was beaten to death. The separation was orchestrated under what is known as a voluntary safety plan or “hidden foster care,” in which parents — including Su’Layah’s mother — report being coerced into giving up their children without ever officially losing custody.
Such “voluntary” arrangements are common around the country and criticized for occurring without court oversight or the provision of services to reunite the family.
That case, brought by Thomson, was settled last year for an undisclosed sum.
He said the Sy’vir Hill case raises a fundamental question about the system: “If we have so few foster parents that we need to put up to six children in a home, maybe we’re taking too many kids from their families.”
One person who worked on Sy’vir’s case for many months, and asked to remain anonymous for fear of violating child privacy laws, suggested that the Hill children might have received better support in their mother’s home with appropriate social services. Sy’vir’s mother and grandmothers did not return calls or emails to be interviewed for this article.
The CUA lawsuits will likely play a large role in City Council’s forthcoming probes.
“The CUA system has been in place for a long time now,” Ahmad said in an interview. “I think it’s time we can address whether or not the CUA system is working.”
City activists and Bass say they plan to look well beyond the CUAs.
“What these hearings need to reflect is that we already know what the problems are,” said Phoebe Jones, from the organization Give Us Back Our Children. “And, more than that, we already know how to solve them. City Council needs to implement solutions that have already been identified.”
In April 2022, the first iteration of Bass’ Special Committee on Child Separations issued a comprehensive 52-page report with more than three dozen recommendations, including opening Family Court to the media and public, ending the separation of kids and mothers in instances of domestic violence, and barring family separations under any condition in which more funds can solve the problem.
Bass said she wants to revive that committee and its report.
“We have a problem with family separations in the city of Philadelphia,” she said, “and we need to get a look at where we are now.”
Ahmad’s hearings are also expected to include a look at DHS’s continued practice of taking Social Security money from kids in foster care, which has come under increasing criticism. City Council, after an Inquirer investigation, passed an ordinance to ban the practice, but DHS has persisted. The practice is also expected to be addressed through state legislation.