Family TRACS revolutionizes child welfare and juvenile justice services

Juvenile Justice News Clark County, Nev., is like few other counties in the nation. Despite the economic slowdown, it continues to experience historic growth in new business, population and its already strong economy. As a result of this growth, Clark County has become a melting pot of cultural and

Clark County offers a wide array of social services to meet the diverse needs of its residents. The Department of Juvenile Justice Services and the Department of Family Services provide programs aimed at supplying basic needs, promoting safety, improving self-sufficiency and increasing skill levels in a variety of areas.

Department of Juvenile justice Services

The Department of Juvenile Justice Services' booking unit provides 24-hour service, seven days a week. Its intake unit operates from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. seven days a week. Five neighborhood community centers, which provide a variety of services designed to hold delinquent youths accountable for their actions while developing their competency and protecting the community, are located throughout the Las Vegas valley. More than 24,000 arrests and citations were processed in 2001, resulting in more than 2,500 juveniles being placed under the supervision of the Probation Division. In 2001, approximately $152,000 in restitution was paid to victims through the victim witness program. The Detention Division is the department's 24-hour temporary delinquent holding facility, with a maximum bed capacity for 235 youths. The department's Spring Mountain Youth Camp is a long-term correctional facility that houses male youths ages 12 to 18 who have been found guilty of felony acts by a juvenile court judge. The camp, located near Mount Charleston, has a capacity of 100 youths. The youth camp also operates a 12-bed communitybased transitional center in Las Vegas proper for youths ages 12 to 18 re-entering the community from correctional placement and probation.

Department Of Family Services

The Department of Family Services' intake unit receives reports of child abuse and neglect, assesses the information and determines the appropriate action to be taken. In 2001, more than 8,400 reports were made to the unit, with more than 7,400 investigations conducted. Child Protective Services investigates allegations of child mistreatment, assesses risks and service needs, and determines the degree of appropriate response. Child Haven, a short-term shelter for neglected, abused and/or abandoned children, provides for children's physical, emotional, educational, social and recreational needs while creating a homelike atmosphere. More than 3,000 children are admitted annually; on any given day, more than 124 children are in residence. Child Haven has an active volunteer program consisting of more than 700 volunteers who spent 7,079 hours with the children on campus last year.

The Psychological Services Unit, used by both the Department of Family Services and the Department of Juvenile Justice Services, provides court-ordered psychological assessments, crisis and suicide evaluations, and counseling to youths housed in the facilities and residing with their families.

Project 2000

In 1995, under director Kirby Burgess, both departments realized that with a work force that was not growing in proportion to the growth in the county, services and expectations could no longer continue at their current levels. In an effort to improve the services provided to Clark County families, the management team developed a mission statement to become "a bold and innovative leader, assuring the provision of exemplary child welfare and juvenile justice services, achieving child and community protection, and strengthening families."

Project 2000 was initially conceived to study the departments and to develop new ideas that would improve and streamline service delivery. The initial study was transformed into a document describing how business was currently being conducted. Additionally, a new model was conceived, which envisioned a new and improved way to provide services to clients and families, and it became the blueprint against which all future work was to be measured.

Along with the new vision for the departments and the new model, four key factors were decided upon by leadership. These factors, listed below, helped guide the development of business process re-engineering and the design of the new case management system:

* Family Focus: Many of the clients are receiving services from both juvenile justice and child welfare. By focusing on the family and not individual incidents, the problems within the family can be identified and addressed.

* Process-Driven: Before the case management system was designed, the new model laid out the best way for the departments to do their work and provide the best service to families and clients.

* Teamwork: Juvenile justice and child welfare staff work in tandem to provide services to shared families.

* Focusing on Results: By pulling reports and queries from the data collected in a shared case management system, leadership is able to make more informed judgments on the work the departments are doing and to fine-tune service delivery.

After the initial study, and with the help of contracted consultants, it was decided that a new case management system was necessary to enhance the business process. A comprehensive automated system for case management and support would have to be developed to use information to improve procedures, stimulate knowledge-sharing through information exchange and support staff and management in determining what works and what does not.

The project team was assembled and a vendor was hired. The team then completed a requirements document detailing the functional, technical, data, interface, reporting, confidentiality/security/audit control and conversions requirements necessary for the development of the comprehensive automated information system.

In 1998, the new automated system, FamilyTRACS (Family Tracking, Reporting and Automated Case Support), was launched. The initial functionality not only supported the business processes of the two departments, but also included screens supporting the District Attorney's Office, Family Court, the County Clerk's Office, the Public Defender's Office and Family Mediation in servicing Clark County families. More screens and functionality were added in subsequent phases as design, development and implementation of these complex business processes were accomplished.

FamlyTRACS has basic functionality that supports:

* Receiving children, youths and families, including basic and advanced demographic information, allegations and charges;

* Setting all types of hearings and recording their results;

* Generating court calendars;

* Creating automatic assignments to individual units and staff;

* Developing and recording safety and risk assessments;

* Generating automatic and selfgenerated reminders and alerts;

* Creating individual workloads for units and staff;

* Recording case notes;

* Automating court reports and orders, and requests for petitions;

* Creating online referrals to the psychology unit; and

* Developing functionality used by the department's three Institutions to record observations, visits, phone calls, population numbers and critical incidents.

Later design phases produced added functionality to support FamilyTRACS users, including the exchange of data with more than 40 community providers through a Web-enabled, secure extranet site. This site allows the departments to send referrals for various service providers and receive progress notes and discharge summaries. Some of the services provided include counseling, and polygraph and drug testing. Also, a separate application supporting the importing and exporting of officer affidavits data with local law enforcement agencies was created. And scanning, indexing and archiving case documents and photographs were added. With these case documents and photographs available online through FamilyTRACS at each work station, staff no longer have to travel from remote centers to the central campus to view documentation.

Nearly five years later, more than 700 staff from both departments use FamilyTRACS daily. Its data repository contains more than 25 years of historical data. Periodic management and ad hoc reports provide supportive statistics used in successful grant award applications and assist the management teams of both departments in programming and workload decision-making.

Future Enhancements

The future holds even brighter and more complex additions to the automated information system. With the possibilities of Internet and wireless access just over the horizon, virtual offices and instantaneous information access will bring exciting new features to this already robust automated case management system.