Policy & Practice December 2018

that this tool not only meets its users’ needs, but also improves data accuracy by displaying the data in a format that is easy to visually audit. The story of co-creation doesn’t end in Ohio with the genogram tech- nology. Constant with guidance from the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), emphasizing modern modular software design to promote efficiency and economy in federal investments in child welfare tech- nology, Ohio and CGI created software that is capable of being shared, lev- eraged, and reused as a separate component within and among states and tribes. CGI and Ohio worked together to research, design, prototype, develop, and refine the genogram products using both open source and com- mercially licensed software. Ohio is making the source code available in ACF’s software repository. Coupled with a nominal license fee for the core visualization library, any state could make use of this product. It is my sincere hope that this is the first of many efforts to share investment between states. In the source code repository are: n Design documents—descriptions of Ohio’s genogram screens n Code module and working example—code is packaged with a working example n Code notes—more technical explanation of the code and imple- mentation details Last year Wareing Evans also wrote, “When we set out to co-create solutions, we engage in ‘abundance leadership’ that focuses our collective efforts on what is possible and shifts us away from the victim or deficit-based mentality to which our field has too often gravitated.” These early co-created and shared CCWIS solutions coming from the state of Ohio and CGI teamwith support from ACF are just a few of the stories that will form the foundation of the next generation of child welfare systems. I am excited and energized by the level of support from the entire ecosystem and am hopeful that every co-created improvement will impact the lives of those who need our help most.

that by achieving this, a designer will be able to truly understand the user’s experience and pain points, and therefore design a far better solution. While ethnographic research is generally conducted with the goal of solving specific problems, getting “under the skin” of a design problem often uncovers many additional oppor- tunities for improvement. Ohio’s project team was given the room to investigate and follow up on adjacent challenges and opportunities that they discovered during their CCWIS design work. These adjacent problems likely would have gone undiscovered through traditional business analysis and joint application design. Ohio made sure that it captured and catalogued findings from its research that would prove useful in future modules, projects, and long- term planning. One of the adjacent problems that researchers observed in Ohio—what they are likely to observe in every new allegation of abuse or neglect—is the process of drawing the family relationships and important facts about the people involved on a piece of paper. This visu- alization often takes the form of a genogram, a graphic representation that displays detailed data on relationships among individuals. Beyond a traditional family tree, it analyzes hereditary patterns and psychological factors that punctuate relationships. In Ohio, a request to automate the dia- graming and storage of family relationships became an initiative priority for CGI. Previous ethnographic research and user-centered design successes for the child welfare intake module functionality were again leveraged to understand and improve the diagramming process for family relationships. State and local collaboration led to stronger partnerships and helped accelerate the creation of value. The concept of the genogram is attributed to Murray Bowen as part of his family systems model in the 1970s. Genograms were later developed and popularized in clinical settings by Monica McGoldrick and Randy Gerson. The model and notation are commonly taught to social workers and have been the topic of scholarly articles specific to child welfare over the last two decades. Genograms are now very much a core tool for many social workers but have not been a prominent feature of child welfare systems. The Ohio genogram solution utilizes the standard notation that many caseworkers learn in school. Indicators for each represented person include gender, age, person in focus, relation- ships, and characteristics (mental health, developmental, prenatal status, and medical condition, for example). Ohio’s research found

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December 2018 Policy&Practice