Invest in innovation and efficiency for Florida’s kids
Florida’s foster-care system is in trouble.
In 2013, nearly 18,000 children were in foster care. Today: 24,000 — a 33 percent move in the wrong direction.
It’s part of the national trend, which saw an uptick of 31,000 kids within three years.
Here’s what’s especially frustrating: We know how to fix this.
The “not-so-secret” secret is turnover among front-line workers. National estimates suggest up to 50 percent of child-welfare professionals leave their jobs annually.
Every time this happens, it starts a frightening chain reaction for children on their caseloads.
First, these kids will likely spend nearly five additional months in foster care — away from family, stability and certainty about their future.
Second, their chance of ever finding a permanent home immediately drops from 75 percent to 18 percent. By the time they’re on their fourth case manager, they have a mere 2 percent chance. The numbers tell a dire story. More kids are staying in foster care. More kids are turning 18 in foster care. And more kids are becoming statistics, just like their case managers.
We can’t seem to get off this treadmill. Child-welfare first responders are overwhelmed and overworked. Every year, nearly half respond with resignations. Yet we’ve done little to reverse this dynamic.
Until now. In the traditional system, administration and travel dominate 80 percent of case managers’ time — leaving just one day to connect with children and families, build trust and facilitate change. We can do better. Children’s Home Society of Florida is determined to prove it.
With support from the CHS Foundation, top minds at Microsoft and our own case managers, CHS leveraged people, processes and technology changes with one goal in mind: improve outcomes for kids.
We call this strategy CaseAIM. Bringing case management into the 21st century, we’ve combined mobile technology and a shared support center to alleviate administrative burdens and increase face time with children and families.
It’s about working smarter — being more effective with our resources.
We deployed two pilots to test our theory on efficiency.
What we learned is a game changer.
With CaseAIM, case managers spent more time on meaningful contact with children and families. More precisely, an entire day every week.
How? Because CaseAIM reduced administrative tasks by 25 percent.
Even more powerful: Across both pilot sites, not one case manager chose to leave.
An independent evaluator verified with more than 99 percent certainty that CaseAIM was responsible for the result.
By changing the way the work is done, CaseAIM keeps child-welfare professionals on the job — critical to improve outcomes for children.
Now, CHS is asking the Florida Legislature to invest a $2.5 million nonrecurring appropriation to expand implementation and evaluation of CaseAIM.
This request represents just .002 percent of Florida’s investment in child welfare. Potential return on investment? Incredible.
This is public-private partnership at its best: innovating to bring solutions to tough problems.
We can change lives for the better — but we need Florida’s leaders to make the necessary investment, too.