The solution
Hillsborough approached EY to help build a Family Preservation and Assessment System. Here, the organization could also leverage two pieces of federal government legislation – the FFPSA and the Comprehensive Child Welfare Information System (CCWIS). The former allows federal reimbursement of certain services, such as substance-abuse treatment, while the latter encourages better systems with greater interoperability and sharing of data. In the words of Ramin Kouzehkanani, Hillsborough County’s CIO: “I felt the Act [FFPSA] presented a unique opportunity.”
The new platform relies on data such as postcodes, gender, age and family relations to match the different sources and create a unified dataset. Using all the aggregated data, an algorithm flags up potential candidates for early intervention to a caseworker based on variables that Hillsborough County has selected as markers of stress in households. The caseworker is then able to identify the most appropriate support to offer the family.
The platform provides an integrated, collaborative system of care which gets “the right data to the right people at the right time.” It also enables assessments to be completed easily and accurately, with a focus on the quality of referrals.
A number of key enablers helped the project succeed. The organization won support from influential government leaders through its collaborative approach. A shared vision was developed to gain buy-in from the top of the county administration right down to frontline workers. Good stakeholder engagement and local co-development were crucial too: a range of partners, including private contractors, NGOs and charities, came together to reach agreements on data sharing and security.