State awards contract for DYFS computer
system
TRENTON— The New Jersey
Department of Human Services (DHS) announced today it has selected
a vendor to implement a new child welfare information system
to help caseworkers track and monitor children and families.
The contract for the Statewide Automated Child
Welfare Information System (SACWIS) to be used by the Division
of Youth and Family Services (DYFS) has been awarded to American
Management Systems, Inc. (AMS) headquartered in Fairfax, Virginia.
The $26.8 million contract is subject to review and approval
by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration
for Children and Families.
“Thanks to Governor McGreevey, we are finally
on the road to providing our staff with the technology they
need to do their jobs effectively,” said DHS Commissioner
Gwendolyn L. Harris. “SACWIS is long overdue. Past administrations
did not, for whatever reason, see fit to update our child welfare
information system. We’re still using the same computer
system I used 20 years ago as a DYFS district office manager.”
SACWIS will reduce manual paperwork and repetitive
data entry allowing workers to spend more time in the field
protecting children. SACWIS’ enhanced functionality will
benefit DYFS workers and community providers as they will now
be able to provide more timely services to children and families.
New Jersey is one of only six states yet to implement
SACWIS. DYFS currently relies upon a combination of six mainframe,
17 PC based and five Oracle-based systems to support child welfare
operations. Current systems are incapable of producing necessary
prompts/alerts of casework activities and fail to provide supervisors
with the necessary management tools to track case practice issues.
In addition, the current systems cannot talk to
each other or share information. SACWIS will integrate the data
and functionality of these systems into one integrated application
providing a seamless source of information to the Division and
its workers.
The new system will also incorporate specific
prompts/alerts for caseworkers to visit families or conference
a case with supervisors within designated timeframes. This will
allow caseworkers, supervisors and senior management to proactively
manage individual cases and the overall caseload.
“SACWIS will improve our system of checks
and balances,” said Commissioner Harris. “How many
children have been placed at risk because staff didn’t
have accurate information or couldn’t access it at all?”
As part of the reform plan to improve the State’s
child welfare system, more than 2600 new computers have already
been supplied as part of the SACWIS development. Using the latest
web-based technology, SACWIS will produce an integrated system
that will:
