Child welfare remains one of the most challenging and yet rewarding human service areas to administer effectively. A prevalence of manual processes and burdensome paperwork, high case loads, high turnover, low funding, and high emotional stress are common challenges that can create inefficiencies that hinder service delivery and can cause sub optimal performance. Government child welfare agencies must gather and report on thousands of data elements, and then report those elements to the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) and the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS). The capture and analysis of such data is also essential to measuring agency and staff performance.
Harmony supports a number of child welfare programs and services today for government and provider agencies such as:
- Regular and Therapeutic Foster Care
- In Home Services
- Special Needs Adoption
- Family Preservation and Prevention Services
- Wrap Around Services
Solution Overview
Harmony Information Systems offers the child welfare field Harmony for Child Welfare (Harmony CW), a flexible, web-based integrated case management solution with implementation configured based on industry best practices for child welfare organizations that administer and support foster care, adoption and related family preservation, and wrap around services. Harmony CW’s enterprise approach automates and simplifies case management processes and creates a centralized, comprehensive, and reportable client view, resulting in maximized client outcomes, improved efficiency of service delivery and compliance with key funding guidelines and requirements.
Key Harmony Child Welfare Components
- Comprehensive Case Management: Workers process intakes in Harmony and complete a bevy of assessments including family and social history, medical history, education, and school history. As part of the intake process, Harmony supports the recording of dental and physician appointments, the placement of children in temporary and permanent out of home placements, and the documentation of thorough plans of care that are updated periodically. Harmony helps agencies authorize services and document their delivery and record client contacts.
- End to End Financial Management: Processes clothing allowances, adoption subsidies, and foster care room and board payments. With Harmony, agencies manage service authorizations, invoices, and billing for services to Medicaid and other government entities.
- Managing Providers and Resources: Manages foster families and adoptive parents, records family members, criminal background checks, and in home visits, tracks whether foster families take infants or teens, sibling groups, disabled children, or provide emergency care. Links placements with families, and shows payment histories by client and resource.
- Outstanding Performance Management and State Reporting Tools: Harmony provides standard reports that summarize financial and service data by client, program, service, funding source, provider etc. Detail reports list clients by date of birth, caseload reports, placement history, care plans, and outcome results. Harmony provides dashboards to help management to quickly identify outliers, manage compliance, and measure performance. Harmony provides ad hoc reporting tools to help management quickly analyze data.