Financial Assistance and Social Services Case Management System
Case StudyBureau of Indian Affairs
Bringing the modern workplace to the Bureau of Indian Affairs
The Bureau of Indian Affairs’ mission is to enhance the quality of life, promote economic opportunity, and provide services and support for American Indians and Alaska Natives. A key function of the BIA is to provide social service and financial assistance programs to families throughout the country.
One of the most critical components to this mission is mobility – meaning today’s technology needed to be accessible via a web browser in the cloud.
Challenge
The BIA was struggling with a legacy case management system that was tethered to an on-premises system. This meant that their team in the field had to go out, collect information, and come back to their office to complete a task. Work processes were inefficient, and delivering services to people in need took weeks or even months. The agency needed a better process and faster tools.
For this effort, they initiated the Financial Assistance and Social Services – Case Management System (FASS-CMS) Modernization Project calling for a mobile social services workforce solution on a FedRAMP compliant cloud-based system.
Solution
The BIA tapped into the experts at Arctic IT – a team familiar with the process improvement the agency was seeking. For this project to be successful, our team reverse engineered their original source code (created by another provider) and rebuilt the solution on the Microsoft Dynamics 365 platform. Along the way, Arctic IT brought in new functionality, migrated the data, and organized and uploaded hundreds of supporting documents critical to their operation.
Arctic IT, in partnership with the BIA, armed 175 case workers across 12 regions with the ability to make an impact while out in the field. In addition to deploying the technology, Arctic IT provided comprehensive training to each of their case workers and continues to provide ongoing support for their day-to-day needs.
Results
The major technology overhaul encompassed seven different programs run by the BIA. Now, each of the programs’ staff members have ‘one pane of glass’ to complete their complex case management requirements and tasks.
The FASS-CMS Cloud solution’s case records provide a critical, ongoing ‘picture’ of the nature of the BIA Agency’s involvement with children and families, the progress toward achieving outcomes, and the basis of decisions that eventually lead to case closure. The improved process of record-keeping and good case management itself helps to clarify and focus the social services work by providing accountability for case workers. Case files and records provide:
- Who is and is not served (including any other household members who may not be participating in services)
- The kinds of services provided (or not provided due to availability or level of service issues)
- The basis for all decisions
- The degree to which policies and procedures are implemented
- And other aspects of accountability and quality control.
“This work drastically transformed the way in which case workers manage and deliver direct services to eligible recipients of the BIA’s financial assistance and social service programs,” said Babette Howe, Program Manager at the BIA.
Case Workers on FASS-CMS
175
Regions Served Across the U.S.
12
Powerful Solution
1
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