Indiana Approved to Claim Federal Funding for Modern Child Welfare Technology

Case Com­mons, an Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion grantee that has devel­oped an inno­v­a­tive child wel­fare case man­age­ment tech­nol­o­gy sys­tem, has learned that its client – the state of Indi­ana – has received one of the first fed­er­al waivers of fund­ing reg­u­la­tions on pro­pri­etary human ser­vices software.

This piv­otal devel­op­ment enables Indi­ana to request fed­er­al fund­ing for key costs of Case­book, which is a core com­po­nent of the state’s child wel­fare tech­nol­o­gy plat­form, the Man­age­ment Gate­way for Indi­ana’s Kids (MaGIK).

“We are excit­ed by MaGIK’s suc­cess in Indi­ana, and Casebook’s con­tri­bu­tion,” said Kath­leen Feely, vice pres­i­dent for inno­va­tion at the Foun­da­tion and chief exec­u­tive offi­cer at Case Com­mons. ​“America’s most vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren and fam­i­lies too fre­quent­ly do not ben­e­fit from a pub­lic child wel­fare sys­tem equipped with tru­ly 21^st cen­tu­ry tech­nol­o­gy and advanced ana­lyt­ics. This deci­sion could help change that equation.”

The ground­work for this deci­sion was laid a year ago, when the Admin­is­tra­tion for Chil­dren and Fam­i­lies at the U.S. Depart­ment of Health and Human Ser­vices released an inno­v­a­tive pro­gram instruc­tion that paved the way for states to adopt mod­ern, cloud-based and com­mer­cial off-the-shelf solu­tions to sup­port child wel­fare agencies.

“We are grat­i­fied by the Admin­is­tra­tion for Chil­dren and Fam­i­lies’ deci­sion,” said Charles Simon, gen­er­al coun­sel and direc­tor of pol­i­cy at Case Com­mons. ​“It speaks to their com­mit­ment to states seek­ing to adopt trans­for­ma­tive tech­nolo­gies that deliv­er improved out­comes for chil­dren and families.”

Case­book uses the same approach to soft­ware tools that is rev­o­lu­tion­iz­ing busi­ness, but that approach has been slow to pen­e­trate human ser­vices and child welfare.

Case Com­mons, which cre­at­ed Case­book for child wel­fare providers around the coun­try, also is help­ing to lead a dis­cus­sion about how to improve tech­nol­o­gy in government.

“With this excit­ing news that fed­er­al fund­ing can be used to sup­port Indiana’s MaGIK plat­form, we hope that prac­ti­tion­ers around the coun­try will begin to con­sid­er tru­ly 21^st cen­tu­ry solu­tions like Case­book,” said Heather West­on, chief oper­at­ing offi­cer. ​“We are here to help case­work­ers, admin­is­tra­tors and pol­i­cy­mak­ers do their jobs as effi­cient­ly and effec­tive­ly as pos­si­ble to ben­e­fit mil­lions of chil­dren and fam­i­lies nationwide.”

Case­book is a pow­er­ful exam­ple of how tech­nol­o­gy inno­va­tion can serve vul­ner­a­ble chil­dren and fam­i­lies. We are proud of our part­ner­ship with Case Com­mons as it leads a grow­ing move­ment to rev­o­lu­tion­ize how gov­ern­ment puts tech­nol­o­gy to work for those most in need.