Policy & Practice October 2017

We can all agree; the issues are vast: � Not enough resources. Resources are limited in every facet. There are not enough caseworkers to handle the volume and increasing complexity of cases, not enough foster homes to take in displaced children, and not enough funding for board and care costs or necessities like car seats when foster homes are available. � Lacking support for parents. The recovery period for opioid addiction is longer and the chance of relapse is higher than other drug addic- tions. Often treatment is not readily available, which means termination of parental rights is more likely. Parents often face legal repercus- sions or incarceration that can also cause separation. � Long-term effects on children. Children of parents with substance use issues are more likely than their peers to experience abuse and neglect, to be referred to the child welfare system, and to be placed in foster care (overall and for longer periods of time), according to non- profit research organization Child Trends. When exposed to opioids during pregnancy, children have more complex medical needs. They may develop behavioral and attention problems requiring specially licenses and trained foster homes, which are even fewer in supply and costlier. � Overwhelmed caseworkers. Opioids can devastate a family. Front-line caseworkers are experiencing sec- ondary trauma, which leads to higher turnover. This increases recruitment and training costs, and overtime costs for remaining workers taking on additional cases. It also taxes the

terms can be mentioned outright in medical reports from hospitals, or indi- rectly in caseworker narratives or case notes about interactions with families. There are multiple references and multiple sources of data that all point to one topic; however, even the best case management and document manage- ment systems do not offer a way to bring data collected across the organization into usable insights. Now, imagine if your organization could surface data that show any con- nection to opioids using cognitive search and knowledge discovery—terms recently explained by Forrester as “The new generation of enterprise search solutions that employ AI technologies such as natural language processing and machine learning to ingest, understand, organize, and query digital content from multiple data sources.” 1 In short, cognitive search combines several new technologies—things like indexing, natural language processing, and machine learning—to understand, organize, and establish links between information from various internal and external sources to help users.

already limited supply of caseworkers who have to pick up the pieces, and threatens continuity of care for the children (See graphic above). Where Does Technology Come In? There is no shortage of tools available for a child welfare organiza- tion: case management, document management, business intelligence (reporting), iPads, and other mobility tools… the list can go on. Simply throwing technology at the issue is not enough. Technology tools have to be applied in a way that empowers caseworkers and organiza- tions to collect and surface the right data at the right time. When done right, technology can make a huge dif- ference to organizations addressing the issue in the community at large or to an individual caseworker working to improve the life of one child. Cognitive search is emerging in the market. Could it be an answer? Identify Community Trends A key problem is the category of opioid drugs goes by many names, and there are drugs used for treatment asso- ciated with abuse. Opioids and related

Richard Diers is the Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer at Northwoods.

See Opioids on page 36

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Policy&Practice October 2017