Can't Get IT Right for Vulnerable Kids

What is it with computer systems designed to serve the most vulnerable children?

From The Columbus Dispatch, comes another story of a computer system that was poorly developed and puts at-risk kids at even greater risk. The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services last year turned on a new computer system -- the Statewide Automated Child Welfare Information System -- to better track children in foster homes. But when the state began using the system, the foster families who did not have children in their care at the time the system went online were not placed in the foster family database. When children were placed in those families, case workers could not add the family to the computer system. That makes it more difficult to track children put in the care of those families.

As a result, the state runs the risk of losing track of foster children, according to the article. Counties are still being added to the system, but child welfare advocates have called for the state to stop adding counties until the problem can be fixed. The state says an electronic fix is not expected to be available until January, and it doesn't want to stop adding counties to the system because the system already is far behind schedule and over budget. The system has cost $93 million to develop and has had a history of problems and missed deadlines for the past decade, according to the article.

Numerous state and local jurisdictions have been upgrading child welfare systems -- without much success. New York and Philadelphia have reported similar problems with new computer systems developed to better track cases for state child protective services agencies.