Policy & Practice | Fall 2024

Face-to-face visits between caseworkers and family members are essential for effective intervention and support. Every hour spent with a family and not on paperwork is another step toward positive outcomes for that family.

kin mentioned in the case. That same survey also confirmed that front-line staff uses the time savings to spend more time with families. Face-to-face visits between caseworkers and family members are essential for effective intervention and support. Every hour spent with a family and not on paper work is another step toward positive outcomes for that family. Another one of our goals is to use NLP to facilitate knowledge transfer when a case is reassigned, or when a new provider or specialist joins the case. Our specialized NLP platform from Augintel recognizes when somebody new is added to a case and automatically sends that team member an email with a summary of key points from the case. This has been greatly appreciated across the organization, with one caseworker saying, “I see how helpful this is, par ticularly when we transfer cases or get new ones. What an easy way to search and organize important aspects of the case. I appreciate having such a helpful tool.” Since implementing the tool, 124,000 of these emails have been sent to caseworkers, providers, and specialists to quickly get them up to speed on a case. Addressing Worker Safety At the time of rollout, we were also excited about the ability to use the data in case notes to help address the safety and well-being of our staff. Whenever new team members are assigned to a case, the platform auto matically mines the case notes for any references to weapons, pets inside the Facilitating Knowledge Transfer

home, violence in the neighborhood, or other information contained in case notes. If the data suggest there might be a safety risk to the case worker, an alert is sent via email. Nearly 9,500 alerts have been sent over the past 12 months, with the majority of recipients agreeing that the alert nudged them to look further into the history of that case to better understand where and when safety concerns occurred. Perhaps the most significant finding surrounding the workers’ safety feature is the widespread and genuine sentiment of appreciation, felt by all staff, that the State of Illinois was adding a layer of protection for them. In recent feedback, a Child Protection Specialist put it like this, “Just the fact that the state arranged someone looking over the investigator’s shoulder means a lot.” Mining Narrative Data Has Far-Reaching Benefits Supporting our staff was what drove us to adopt NLP as part of our trans formative modernization efforts at DCFS, but the benefits and the ability to mine narrative data across a group of cases—or the entire agency—are far-reaching. It has given agency lead ership the unprecedented ability to identify, measure, and count things they never could before. As of today, the IL DCFS is tracking 18 different indicators across the agency that can help determine service arrays, inform agency practices, and contribute to overall agency success. Quality assurance specialists are now easily able to identify cases that fall outside practice guidelines for note quality, gaps in documentation, adher ence to practice guidelines for required

conversations, visits, or documentation and take necessary action. Leadership can monitor across cases for early warning signs such as a lack of family engagement, pre-incident behaviors, domestic violence, or mentions that a child is unsafe. And they can monitor cases for disruptions in placements allowing them to take necessary action to ensure the safety and well-being of the children in those cases. Mining the narrative data across the agency is also helping our specialists better understand service needs and be more proactive in reaching out to families in need of specialized services such as language assistance or support for disabilities. For example, IL DCFS specialists were able to discover that 30 percent more families needed assis tance with hearing loss. Armed with this data, specialists were then able to make referrals for these services. The ability to identify needs and act on them has proved to be a major benefit for our specialists. We’re very pleased with our progress over the last 12 months! Our deci sions are now more data informed, we’re becoming more proactive and productive, and we continue to find new ways to leverage the meaningful data in case notes. This information benefits everyone involved within the organization and most important, the families we serve. Jim Daugherty is Chief Information Officer at the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. Julie Barbosa is the Chief Deputy Director, Strategy and Performance Execution, at the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.

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Fall 2024 Policy & Practice