Implementing the nation's first comprehensive child welfare solution for LA DCFS

LA – CCWIS

Successfully completed modernization effort enabling 1500 plus internal and external users to provide more than 4.6 million residents with improved safety, self-sufficiency, permanency, and well-being.

Background and Objectives

Undergoing a modernization effort driven by a change in federal CCWIS requirements, the Louisiana Department of Children & Family Services (DCFS) needed to totally replace its existing Child Welfare system with a modern CCWIS COTS product. This new solution would help the DCFS focus on its key responsibilities of keeping children safe and making families more self-sufficient. It would provide support across adoption services, foster care services, family services, and home development.

Before implementing the system, the DCFS was facing challenges with:

  • Disparate and outdated systems.
  • Data integrity and inconsistencies – leading to reporting difficulties, incomplete data analysis, and manual correction efforts.
  • Growing caseloads.
  • A limited number of caseworkers.
  • Meet the needs of the State – caring for the well-being of Louisiana’s children.
  • Comply with the CCWIS federal requirements for functionality, modularity, interoperability, mobility, data quality, accessibility, and integration.
  • Integrate both with the State and with external systems to exchange DCFS information.

Approach and Solution

To improve performance and increase efficiency, the State of Louisiana required the support of a modernized, CCWIS (Comprehensive Child Welfare Information System) compliant child welfare system. CITI successfully implemented the nation’s first end-to-end comprehensive child welfare COTS (Commercial Off the Shelf) solution Unify™ with Creative Information Technology, Inc.’s (CITI’s) expert support. CITI employed an Agile scrum-based delivery approach coupled with our unique project accelerators to accelerate the delivery of State approved production-ready and fully functional child welfare modules. After finishing their ongoing implementation of a few remaining modules, unify will provide LADCFS staff with a full lifecycle case management solution from intake to post permanency.

Outcomes

  • Implemented a total replacement of their disparate legacy systems including Salesforce-based Intake and Investigation modules. As a result, the State of Louisiana acquired modularity, interoperability, mobility, data quality, accessibility, and integration.
  • Real-time Integration is possible through Unify’s Integration Exchange. One of the things this enables is the State’s requirement for integration with the NCCD (National Council on Crime and Delinquency) Structured Decision-Making Risk Model. Additionally, to support more informed decision-making, OOB (out-of-the-box) API-led web services enable data sharing across our HHS program and other systems associated with human service provisions.
  • Increased the efficiency and effectiveness of all programs through our solution’s “well thought out” design providing the support they require to promote safety, self-sufficiency, permanency, and well-being.
  • Realized the possibility of No code enhancements through our product’s high system configurability and modular design making it easier for the State to extend the system without major development efforts.
nation's first comprehensive child welfare solution