New computer system for foster kids criticized

Ohio’s statewide system is
seriously flawed, advocates warn.

COLUMBUS (AP) — Ohio is at risk of losing track of foster-care children because of problems in a new statewide computer system, child welfare advocates say.

The new Statewide Automated Child Welfare Information System, launched in about half of Ohio’s 88 counties so far, is designed to collect data on child abuse and neglect cases, making it easier for child welfare agencies to track abusers and victims instead of independent county-by-county databases currently in use.

But the $93 million project failed to include information from foster care providers who did not have children in their homes at the time the system went online, according to the state’s Public Children Services Association.

When children are subsequently places in those homes, county agencies can’t add their cases to the new computer system, said Crystal Ward Allen, executive director of the association.

The Children Services Association points to a missing-foster child crisis in Florida five years ago as an example of the potential risks.

Then, it took Florida’s Department of Children and Families 15 months to realize a 5-year-old Miami foster girl was missing. Later investigations revealed the agency had temporarily been unable to find 102 children.

Allen said her organization has asked the state to stop adding new counties to the system until the problems are fixed.

Doesn’t want delays

The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services recognizes the problems in the transitional period, but the department is eager to keep the program on schedule, said director Helen Jones-Kelley. The database was rolled out last year after a decade of missed deadlines and false starts, she said.

The state is working to enter the missing foster-family data, Jones-Kelley said. The database is current to Aug. 1, and as counties discover problems, state workers correct the main system, she said.

To protect the case file information, some counties’ caseworkers are using backup systems, such as writing out information by hand, said Franklin County’s Children Services Executive Director Eric Fenner.

“All the children in our care, we know where they are. The problem is, they are not all in [the computer system],” he said.

By January, all of the state’s 88 counties should be using the automated information system, Jones-Kelley said.