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Roving eye on the vulnerable

A new computer system should help keep better track of foster kids.

By ALISA ULFERTS
Published March 26, 2007

HomeSafenet was supposed to make it easy.

The computer tracking system should have allowed child welfare workers, with a few simple keystrokes, to monitor the progress of families whose children were under care of the state.

They could electronically schedule visits to those families and see at a glance who'd been visited and who hadn't.

But HomeSafenet, first proposed in 1994, was anything but easy.

Instead of spending time out in the field checking on children, welfare workers were sitting at a desk, tied up with frustrating electronic paperwork. And HomeSafeNet ran into years-long delays, cost overruns exceeding $100-million and high staff turnover. One bid to fix the system was thrown out amid allegations of cronyism.

Ultimately, state lawmakers told DCF to start over.

Now, after more than a decade of development, a new computer system that will track Florida's most vulnerable children is finally coming in for a landing. Florida Safe Families Network will begin pilot testing in four districts, including Pinellas County, later this month or early the next.

So far the system is getting good reviews from workers in the field, who have been recruited to help the state anticipate any wrinkles in the system before it rolls out statewide later this spring.

"They've embraced the user," said Jeff Rainey, director of Hillsborough Kids Inc., which manages foster care in Hillsborough County. "The simplicity of it should make life easier for the user."

The user in this case will be the state's 7,500 child welfare workers. Florida Safe Families Network will help them manage their case loads.

When it's time to see another child, an electronic reminder will be sent both to the caseworker and his or her supervisor.

It isn't designed to stop intentional fraud, such as the arrest of a Hillsborough Kids caseworker, who authorities say lied about visits to a family, earlier this month. Such incidents are considered extremely rare.

But the computer system is intended to prevent another case like Rilya Wilson, a 4-year-old Miami foster child who was missing for more than a year before the state discovered her disappearance in 2002.

Because the new system was developed in part due to a federal requirement to monitor federal money sent to help families, caseworkers will be able to see at a glance if, for example, the family receives other federal benefits such as welfare.

If someone called the state's abuse hotline to report suspected abuse or neglect, the state's complete response to the complaint will be accessible in the system.

If the family was referred to other services such as anger management or parenting classes, that, too, will be in the system along with the name of the organization providing the services and whether the family members assigned to them completed the work.

"We are looking at the full picture," said Joseph Vastola, who oversees the network for DCF.

"It will give the state a view of every case," Vastola said.

In adopting a new system, the state will be keeping some of the old.

Part of the expense overruns of HomeSafenet were because it represented a mammoth transition from paper-based system to a computer system, which the state was able to take advantage of for Florida Safe Families Network.

Of the $153,558,400 the state spent developing HomeSafenet, $42,104,521 in re-used hardware was salvaged, according to DCF spokesman Al Zimmerman.

The current $23-million contract to develop and maintain the system is held by the Canadian company CGI.

That company had purchased another company that had ties to former social services Secretary Jerry Regier, who resigned in 2005 after acknowledging he took favors from lobbyists.

State officials and lawmakers say they aren't concerned about past ties to the former secretary. CGI has developed similar systems in several other states.

Capt. George Steffen, who runs the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office Child Protective Investigations Division, said it's premature to rate how well the system will perform.

He has to train more than 100 staffers on the system, a task he calls "daunting."

Still, he agrees with Hillsborough Kids Inc.'s Rainey that the state has made a serious effort to include the concerns of field level workers in the development of the computer system.

"They asked for our input and that's extremely important," Steffen said. "In that regard it's been great."

[Last modified March 25, 2007, 23:03:49]