Chief: DCF's system behind

While the agency has progressed, its computer system is too difficult to use, Secretary Jerry Regier says.

©Associated Press
September 24, 2002

MIAMI -- The state child welfare agency's $230-million computer system may need significant changes because it is too difficult to use, the agency's head said Monday.

Installation of the computer system, which was intended to replace paper files, is more than seven years behind schedule and $200-million over budget.

"When a worker has to go through 20 screens to put in basic information, we've got a problem," said Department of Children and Families Secretary Jerry Regier.

Regier told the seven-member Blue Ribbon Panel on Child Protection that evaluating the computer system, called HomeSafenet, was a top priority.

Gov. Jeb Bush told the panel Monday that the state had made significant progress.

"We're dealing with life's imperfections playing out on the most vulnerable among us," Bush said. "We're on the right track."

Bush said that through August, the agency had completed monthly visits to 95 percent of the 45,000 children in its care, and he said that 139 children statewide of 393 that had been identified as missing have been found.

"A great majority of the kids that haven't been located are runaways," Bush said.

The state is also close to fully complying with the panel's suggestion that every child in DCF care be fingerprinted and have photos and birth date verification in his or her file, Bush said.

"The department clearly hasn't approached the promised land, but it is significantly closer than it was several months ago," said David Lawrence Jr., the panel's chairman.

Among the other steps listed as progress in meeting the panel's suggestions:

-- DCF has established a hotline for caregivers to call the state if they haven't received a monthly visit from a DCF caseworker.

-- The agency is conducting criminal history checks of all foster parents and others caring for children in the agency's care.

-- The agency is now required to contact law enforcement agencies if there is any reason to believe a child is missing.

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