ism conference 2008 presentation
TRANSCRIPT
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IT Solutions Management for Human Services
Cognos, an IBM Company
ISM Conference-San Francisco, California
August 24-27, 2008
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Implementing Tools and Data Warehousing for Data Quality and
Reporting
Eboni WashingtonFamily ServicesClark County, Nevada
Lori HigdonInformation TechnologyClark County, Nevada
August 26, 2008
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Agenda
Family Services Overview Changing Climate External Business Drivers Technology Drivers Challenges Cognos Solution Q & A
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Our Mission Statement: “to protect children by building and supporting nurturing, stable families in collaboration with community providers”.
Services Provided: – Child Abuse Hotline – Child Abuse and Neglect Investigations– Foster Care Services– Adoption Services– Children’s Advocacy Center
Department of Family Services
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Family Services Overview
“Vision Statement”
Caregiver Services
Child WelfareServices
AdministrationServices
Shelter Services
Specialized Services
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Facts and Figures I
The Department of Family Services employs 750 Full-Time and 125 Part-Time staff and the operating budget for fiscal year 07/08 was $97.1 million
In 2007:– 14,317 referrals were received at the hotline. – Of those, approximately 10,000 referrals were
assigned for investigation.
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Facts and Figures II
In 2007:– 1,902 investigations were substantiated– 3,457 children were removed from their homes.
Of the approximately 300 children served by the Receiving Team per month, two-thirds are placed directly with relatives or foster families.
If a placement cannot be identified w/in 24 hours, the child is placed on the Child Haven campus.
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Changing Climate State of Nevada Assembly Bill 1 (2001) mandated that the
Child Welfare services in Nevada be integrated.
Leading up to 2005, there was a series of child fatalities, overcrowding in the County’s children’s emergency shelter, a severe need for foster and adoptive families and rapid growth in the number of children needing emergency placement and services. This prompted systemic and administrative changes.
New senior management developed the “Safe Futures” plan for overhauling the troubled Child Welfare system. This plan promotes program improvement through data driven decision making.
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External Business Drivers
A Federal Program Improvement Plan was issued which threatened loss of federal dollars to Nevada to support child welfare services
National Center for Youth has filed a suit in Federal District Court alleging Clark County is failing its responsibility to protect children
The Administration for Children and Families cited numerous deficiencies in Clark County’s progress toward achieving National standards for safety and permanency
Youth Law Center has actively engaged the County in negotiations in lieu of filing a lawsuit
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Technology Drivers IT Staff unable to meet Department reporting needs:
– Numerous ad hoc reporting requests to support various litigation.
– Lack of sufficient operational reports in Statewide system.
– Inability to measure organization and cost-effectiveness due to primitive reporting capabilities.
Fixing the current system is a cumbersome process.– Modifications are completed by the State and require a
jurisdictional change management process.– Reporting requirements not always the same for each
jurisdiction.
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Challenges
Data challenges faced prior to implementation– Transactional system with limited reporting– Information silos (Source system, Access databases
and Excel spreadsheets) – Limited information about case management
Data/information required much programming time– “Rogue” systems attempting to be implemented in
violation of Federal Statewide Automated Child Welfare Information System (SACWIS) regulations
– Hand-counting conflicts– Immediate need for specific and real-time data.
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Challenges
Management Skill Set– No alignment of measures to strategic plan– Lack of understanding how to interpret and analyze
the data– Very little use of data to initiate program
improvement
Organizational Climate– Phenomenal growth within the Department as a
result of the Child Welfare integration of State and County entities
– Organizational climate for learning and improvement not established throughout the Department
– New Senior Management
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New Management and Data Needs
The Number of investigations per worker The Number of investigations open beyond 45
days The Number of new foster homes The Number and length of Child Haven
placements Reunification within 1 year Length of time from Removal to Adoption
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Cognos at Family Services
Cognos user since 2005 Using Cognos across 8
areas of business Over 100 users accessing
outputs for decision making
24x7 operation; daily updates
Delivering over 100 reports / month
Generating more than 8 cubes
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Family Services
Carson CityUNITY
Database
Clark County ReportingDatabase
Family Services, Courts, DA, & External Agencies
1.5 FTEDevelopers
Cognos Environment
Data MartsCubes
Scorecards
ETL
Requests forInformation
ReportsAnalytics
IndicatorsDataEvery
5 Minutes
Enters Data
Data Warehouse
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Business Value
Post Implementation
-Over 90% of reports developed by DFS management analysts
-6.5 hrs. average development time per report Process Improvements, 55% reduction
Pre Implementation
-100% of reports developed by IT staff
-14.3 hrs. average development time per report
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Business Value
Post Implementation
-Reports available on Executive Dashboards, shared Web server, and distributed as attachments to emails
-News items are displayed on Executive Dashboards for easy monitoring of critical thresholds
Pre Implementation
-Reports available by accessing DFS Reporting Module data had to be imported into Excel to create graphical representations
-No threshold alerting capabilities
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Placement Dashboard
Daily News Items
Report Links
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CHILD HAVEN POPULATION
Shelter Program: Campus Only Comparison FY06 to FY08
as of December 2007
146133
113
146158
171 167 158 154 159171
187174
144
119 124 126109
91103 111 119 126
10999
110
8573 71
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020406080
100120140160180200
July
Augus
t
Septe
mbe
r
Octob
er
Novem
ber
Decem
ber
Janu
ary
Febru
ary
Mar
chApr
ilM
ayJu
ne
Months
Ave
rag
e n
um
ber
of
chil
dre
n
2005/2006 2006/2007 2007/2008
Child HavenPopulationtrending down.
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LENGTH OF STAY IN CARE
Average and Median Days in Child Haven
1311 12 13
1720
18
14
4 4 4 4 4 5 4 4
0
5
10
15
20
25
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
Year
Nu
mb
er o
f D
ays
in
Pla
cem
ent
Average Median
Downward
Trend
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368 378394 400 409 419 426
450 455 472 476 487 493 508
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec
Month
To
tal H
om
es
Foster Care Licensing SnapshotDecember 2007
Regular Foster Care Homes*Average: 10 new homes per month (net)
Increase in FC Homes
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Overdue Investigations
Overdue Investigations (Jan 1, 2004 to Dec 31, 2007)
36.16%38.38% 38.43%
32.79%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
2004 2005 2006 2007
Per
cen
t o
f O
verd
ue
Inve
stig
atio
ns
2004 2005 2006 2007
Beginning of a downward trend
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Removals/Investigations
Downward Trend
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Other Successes
AFCARS: Adoption, Foster Care and Analysis Reporting System – 92% Improvement Rate for errors
when compared to the previous year
Implementation of Performance Based Management – Business processes are
improved with fact-based decision making.
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Child Contacts Metric
Sample ofDaily Metric
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Investigation Monthly Cube
Decrease in Investigations
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Summary
Single Source of Truth Flexible, dynamic environment that provides user friendly
Web-based, Zero-footprint interface Cost Effective reporting solution for non-IT staff Reduction in reporting turn-around Evaluate and compare trends in caseloads across the
spectrum of services
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Eboni WashingtonFamily ServicesClark County, NevadaOffice: [email protected]
Lori HigdonInformation TechnologyClark County, NevadaOffice: [email protected]
Contact Information