Technology to aid state's new child welfare workers

Last Updated: April 08. 2011 5:22PM
Catherine Jun / The Detroit News

Dearborn— Newly hired state social workers in child welfare this spring could be equipped with iPads and mobile technology to make their field work easier, the director of the Department of Human Services said today.

The department recently hired as many as 700 frontline caseworkers to replace more than 1,000 who had taken early retirements late last year.

Of the new hires, 400 are scheduled to start work May 23. The department is exploring furnishing them with up-to-date technology that will ease the updating and filing of cases from outside the office, Maura D. Corrigan said. She spoke at the 2011 annual conference luncheon of the National Association of Social Workers-Michigan chapter at the Hyatt Regency Hotel.

....In her remarks, the director spoke frankly about the department's need to improve the way it administers its foster care system.

"We cannot lose sight of the fact outcomes matter," she said.

The director said she planned to make improvements through public accountability. The department, along with other state agencies, recently submitted to Snyder lists of areas where it plans to show measurable results. Among them, Corrigan said today, were driving down the number of children maltreated in foster care; reducing the number of foster children who await adoption or guardianship longer than 24 months; and quickening the response time of investigations into child abuse or neglect.  FULL STORY

Notice the massive turnover rate.  Outcomes matter?  And reducing the number of kids abused in foster care.  Does that raise your curiosity level?