Just before the Obama administration called it a day, it issued a plan by which states could get 50 cents on the dollar to overhaul their child welfare information and case management systems. The switch to be made was from the old State Automated Child Welfare Information System (SACWIS) to Comprehensive Child Welfare Information System (CCWIS).
“The field has to catch up with technology and innovation,” Rafael López, one of Obama’s top child welfare officials at the time, told Youth Services Insider. “Tech and innovation are not the saviors of child welfare, but they are underutilized tools to more quickly deliver information to the people who should be using data — ourselves included — to make evidence-based policy decisions. These decisions can have life and death consequences.”
Most states have taken them up on it, though there is plenty of frustration among the tech-ier experts in child welfare that many agencies are not thinking bigger about the maximum potential of what a CCWIS can do to improve the process. Texas, one of the largest systems in the nation, was among the few states that have not expressed interest in the federal match. Until now.
The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services (DFPS) issued a report this month revealing its plan for building a CCWIS, which appears to have been developed following an extensive landscape assessment of experiences in other states. The agency expects to split the cost of a $215 million build with the feds that will be implemented between 2028 and 2032, followed by two additional years of maintenance and operations. That plan is of course contingent on the state Legislature agreeing that it’s worth spending state money on.
“This is an exciting opportunity to remove barriers and support casework practice in a meaningful way as well as expand data sharing with our partners to improve outcomes for clients, children, and families,” DFPS said in its report. “The Department is ready to work with the Legislature to achieve these goals in the upcoming Legislative Session.”
Without an approved budget locked in, Texas has yet to select the contractors for this project. It surely represents the biggest potential CCWIS job left on the market.
The goal, per the report, is to replace the existing state system with “a new, configurable case management solution” that will “streamline casework, expand data exchanges, improve
mobile and offline capabilities, and assist individuals with accessing vital resources.” That is techspeak for, ideally, a system that goes beyond harboring information to one that enhances the ability of multiple parties — families, court staff, caseworkers, etc. — to communicate and share information. One reason this is important in Texas in particular: The state is in the process of privatizing most of child welfare services, and by the time the buildout of this CCWIS gets rolling, there will likely be a lead private entity to work into the system for each of the state’s 11 geographic service areas.
In developing its plan for the state Legislature, DFPS conducted interviews with leaders on similar builds in 15 states and Los Angeles County, while gathering further information via a survey sent to another 16 states. A few trends unearthed by that work, as described in their report:
-The average cost of a CCWIS build thus far, at least from what DFPS gathered, is $110 million. Which belies the insane range between the lowest cost of $21 million and the highest of…wait for it…$1.7 billion.
-The timeline for implementation of a system ranged from two to 10 years, with most states opting to bring parts of the new system live as they became ready as opposed to waiting for a full flip-switch. The report notes that turnover of subject matter experts assigned to CCWIS builds caused problems in moving things along, “which reinforced the importance of involving several SMEs from the beginning to help mitigate this issue.”
-The research notes a “notable inclination” toward off-the-shelf options that can be tailored to some extent to meet an individual agency’s need, as opposed to an entirely custom build.
The reason the state hung back on participating earlier was because of concerns that it would lack the capacity to meet the requirements necessary to get the federal funds, risking either a stalled build or more fiscal burden for the state. But according to Texas’ research, the federal government has yet to officially anoint any state system built with the federal split as “CCWIS compliant,” which has in turn led the feds to ease up on requirements.
“This increased flexibility, along with the potential to receive a reimbursement rate of up to 50%, has led DFPS to determine that adopting a CCWIS model would benefit Texas as it aligns with current business needs,” the report concluded.
