Child Welfare Catching Up to Computer Age

SANTA ANA —  While other county agencies surf the Internet and introduce Web pages, the child welfare department remains bound to a low-tech record-keeping system that relies on tons of paper and a skyline of metal filing cabinets.

Because only a small portion of the system is automated, social workers spend about half their time behind desks filling out forms, court papers and other documents.

“Some of the case files are literally a foot high if not more,” said Jorge Sole, senior social services supervisor. “It takes time just to keep all those records in order.”

But relief is on the way in the form of a statewide computer network that is scheduled to go online in June 1997.

Officials said the system will significantly improve child welfare services in the county, allowing social workers to focus more attention on fieldwork and less on paperwork.

The network will also enable the county to more easily match children to foster homes and help quickly gather background information on suspected child abusers from across the state.

“This is going to provide us with much more thorough information that will help us determine how quickly we respond to an abuse report,” said Larry Leaman, director of the county’s Social Services Agency. “It’s going to improve the service we provide to kids.”

The state has been designing the network for six years, but computerizing child abuse records has been discussed for more than a decade.

Orange County will have about 700 computers linked to the system. Most of the funding from the $20-million system comes from state and federal grants, although the Board of Supervisors last week appropriated about $2 million toward the project.

The machines won’t make child welfare a “paperless” office, but Leaman said they will go a long way toward improving what he described as “a taxpayer’s worst nightmare of what the bureaucracy looks like.”

“There won’t be the need to bring a file out of the warehouse, transport it to the office and hope it doesn’t get lost,” he said.

The most anticipated feature of the network is its ability to provide child welfare records from across the state.

Right now, social workers often experience difficulty tracking down family histories and abuse reports for recent arrivals to the county because no statewide child welfare database exists.

“When you don’t have access to family histories, it can lead to inaccurate decisions,” said Marjorie Kelly, deputy director of the California Department of Social Services. “It can result in tragedies.”

Knowing early in the process whether a parent has a criminal record or a history of child and drug abuse helps social workers determine whether to immediately remove children from a home.

“If you take a child into custody because of drug dealing in a house, it would be helpful to know whether the mother has been in the same situation before,” Leaman said.

“If she’s been through drug rehabilitation and it failed, that would help us decide whether to ask a court to invest taxpayer money in drug treatment again.”

Beyond improved records access, the system will automatically compile and transmit statistics to the state, eliminating a time-consuming task that counties must now perform.

The electronic case files also will contain extensive data about children, including their family histories and medical records.

This information can be cross-referenced to help match children to foster parents who can best serve their needs.

Leaman said the key challenge will be training the hundreds of social workers, clerks and supervisors who will use the system.

Employees will also have to adjust to a more regimented record-keeping process that will come with computerization.

“Every ‘t’ has to be crossed and every ‘i’ dotted before a case is moved,” Leaman said. “No shortcuts will be allowed. That can be frustrating.”

Still, Sole and other social workers said they are eagerly awaiting their entrance into the information age.

“Rather than just keeping paperwork in order, we could be spending more time visiting families,” Sole said.