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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

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Khyra Ishaq: Five Months at Home (Case File)

On the morning of 17 May 2008, an ambulance was called to a house in Handsworth, Birmingham. Paramedics found seven-year-old Khyra Ishaq dead. She weighed thirty-seven pounds, and the Court of Appeal later noted that the house held an abundance of good, wholesome food. Five months earlier she had been a pupil with a perfect attendance record. In December 2007 her school reported that she had been taking food. That same month her mother wrote to say she would educate her at home.

This is the case file on Khyra Ishaq. I follow how the one institution that saw her every day dropped out of her life, and how a school's concern about food went into a referral that was inaccurately recorded and then lost. I also cover the serious case review, the first in England to be published in full. It found that some agencies lost sight of the child, and that home education law gave local authorities no power to monitor or inspect. I cover the two prosecutions and sentences, the 2011 Court of Appeal judgment, and Angela Gordon's release in 2017. I say plainly where the record runs out, including the outcome of the social workers' disciplinary and regulatory processes.

I also draw on more than fourteen years of social work practice to look at six areas, and end with questions for professionals.

Chapters (approximate):

• Cold open: the 999 call
• The family before Junaid Abuhamza
• December 2007: the food, the letter, the school gap
• Home education and the doorstep problem
• The serious case review
• What happened to the professionals
• The trials, the pleas and the sentences
• The Court of Appeal and release
• Six strands for professionals
• Questions to take back to your practice

Content note: The episode discusses the starvation and death of a child. The script deliberately avoids a detailed account of what the children went through, in line with the court's own approach.