Policy & Practice | Spring 2025

technology speaks

By Molly Tierney

When Code Meets Compassion: Empowering Child Welfare for Thriving Communities

O ver recent years, child welfare agencies across the country have embarked with zeal on a journey to the micro-chip millennium. The Comprehensive Child Welfare Information System (CCWIS) rules, and the funding that came with them, meant the human services sector could finally have the technology we desperately need to get our work done. Technology could be the enabler for a myriad of excellent practice models and help us realize our mutual belief that child welfare could contribute to stronger families and a better future in thriving com munities across the country. It’s no secret that, in many places, the CCWIS journey has not gone as

of child welfare. By design they are to put their heads together and co-design a new solution that will work for child welfare. It’s an elegant model that has worked wonders in other sectors. Except in child welfare somehow it hasn’t. Team One, they populate them with technologists who have experience from other human services projects— which makes good sense. Except, remember that since child welfare has not updated its technology in 25 years, the people from whom they select—while very smart, expert pro fessionals—have built their careers designing solutions for child support I have a hypothesis about why. First of all, when vendors staff

well as we had all hoped. In some places it has stalled altogether. Like many of you, I’ve devoted my entire career to child welfare, so this turn of events has left me dismayed and frustrated. After picking myself up and dusting myself off, I decided to do some thinking on the matter. I asked myself: Really, what is going awry between kick-off and go-live in CCWIS deliveries? CCWIS deliveries begin with a process called Discovery. This is basi cally a room in which two teams of people gather. Let’s call them “Team One” and “Team Two.” Team One is a vendor team comprised of tech nologists. Team Two is comprised of professionals who know the business

Image via Accenture

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Policy & Practice Spring 2025