The Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services (CHFS) and Children’s Advocacy Centers of Kentucky (CAC Kentucky) recently discovered only about 50% of children qualified for CAC services previously had access to those services. In response, CHFS and CAC Kentucky sought ways to help more abused families and reduce response time.
To facilitate these goals, a data integration was developed between Kentucky’s state child child welfare database, called The Workers Information SysTem (TWIST), and Collaborate via the Investigation Feature.
“Using technology to better share child welfare information between the Commonwealth of Kentucky and our CACs has changed the way we serve clients. The technology allows us to enhance communication and improve the efficient response of all team members, ultimately benefiting children.”
Laura Kretzer
Chief Strategy Officer, Children’s Advocacy Centers of Kentucky
Kentucky’s Integrated Data-Sharing Approach
Automated sharing of complete investigation data means that Kentucky CACs now:
- Quickly receive and evaluate investigations to determine if they qualify for CAC services,
- Kick off pre-populated Cases using investigation data from the state child welfare database, and
- Deliver services to more children and families, more quickly than ever before.
By CAC Kentucky’s estimate, child advocates will serve an additional 7,500 children per year that previously wouldn’t have had access to CAC services. To handle the expected 100% increase in service volume and improve response time, CAC Kentucky boosted direct services staffing capacity by 91% - including adding satellite offices to help underserved regions.
Before & After the Investigation Feature
| Before | After | |
|---|---|---|
| Investigation data sharing | Spreadsheets & email | Integrated |
| Case routing by county | Human determined | Automated |
| Case creation | Manual data entry | Pre-populated intakes |
| Number of children served per year | ~7,500 | ~15,000 |
| Access to CAC services in Kentucky | Uneven | Equitable |
Drop us a line if you’d like to explore how data integrations with Collaborate can boost inter-department coordination, get help to more people that need it, and grow service capacity for your organization.
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