DCYF to debut mobile tech program in June for social workers, field investigators

PROVIDENCE – The state Department of Children, Youth and Families is rolling out a new mobile technology program next month that will equip social workers and investigators with secure, mobile-enabled tablets.

The department said the mobile software was developed by a team of DCYF caseworkers and investigators.

“This project is great news for staff who work in the field,” Lori Fernandes, a DCYF casework supervisor and a member of the design team, said in a statement. “We want to spend more time with children and families and less time doing paperwork, and now our process will be more efficient.”

Initially, approximately 20 field staff will receive Dell Latitude tablets. The state agency said it wants to expand the technology to all field workers by January 2018.

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A total of $450,000 was included in the fiscal 2016 budget for the initiative. The project required several upgrades to DCYF’s servers and other technology.

“No one becomes a social worker because they like paperwork. We are putting the right technology in the field to give our caseworkers more flexibility to spend time with the people they serve,” Gov. Gina M. Raimondo said.

According to the department, one of its greatest challenges has been a lack of access to modern, mobile technology, especially for employees who work in the field, making home visits and attending court appearances. The department said caseworkers now have to spend time traveling back and forth to the office to complete paperwork when modern technology would allow them to spend more time in the field. The mobile technology program will allow front-line staff in the Child Protective Services, Family Services and Juvenile Probation divisions to access case notes, e-mail and other information.

Jamia R. McDonald, chief strategy officer of the state Executive Office of Health and Human Services, said this marks the first time “in decades” that the department has invested in modern technology for its front-line staff. The agency worked with NTT Data, which conducted a workflow and staff needs analysis last fall.

Last year, as a part of the DCYF turnaround, McDonald directed the review of the agency’s processes, discovering field staff lost as much as 30-40 percent of their time completing administrative tasks, commuting to the office and attending court.

Thanks to the new technology, staff can enter case notes into the system in real time, access previous case notes, take and upload case photos, use a dictation application to quickly enter information instead of typing manually, and share information with other authorized staff and supervisors quickly.

Supervisors also will have the ability to quickly review employees’ work.

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