Yesterday morning I was enjoying a cup of coffee and reading the paper when I stumbled across an article that was both frightening and eye-opening. The article discussed different situations caseworkers in Michigan were facing when confronted by their angry clients. Caseworkers reported that clients were making violent threats, by-passing security guards and showing up at their desks unannounced/uninvited, and in one event a piece of concrete was hurled through the window of a welfare agency. Remember, these are caseworkers…the people that are trying to help the very people acting out in frustration.

If the events these caseworkers are facing on a regular basis weren’t enough to make me shake my head in disbelief, the proposed solution definitely did. According to the paper, seven caseworkers went to the state Capitol to ask for help – better security, more staff, and help with the problem computer system. One of the ‘helpful’ lawmakers suggested they consider carrying handguns. Yes, you just read that right…I had to re-read the paragraph twice to comprehend this recommendation. Handguns? What is this…the Wild West? Caseworkers provide help; they do not enforce law or act as body guards! Needless to say, this suggestion did not sit well with the caseworkers. I’m sure there were better suggestions offered up from lawmakers, but the newspaper did not mention them.

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The other day a colleague shared this story in Newsday discussing the shortage of social services case workers and increasing demands for assistance; it reminded me how little has changed since I was a social services case worker in the late 80′s. My job was to process applications for beneifts under the AFDC program, a federal program designed to provide cash and medical assistance to children when a parent is missing from the home. The challenge was to provide assistance to people who qualified while ensuring the integrity of the program by preventing fraud and complying with the regulations defined in the program charter.

Regulations provided 30 days to either approve or deny the case – but when there is only one parent, no child support, no income and the landlord is about to evict — 30 days might as well be an eternity. Every day we dealt with people whose well-being rested in the balance – based on whether or not we made a good decision. Decide wrong and a child goes without food or medical care. Decide wrong and someone who doesn’t meet the program criteria, or intentionally commits fraud, may receive benefits that can never be recovered. These overpayments deplete the assistance pool for qualified recipients, can result in expensive legal fees for prosecution, and always lead to higher costs for the taxpayers to fund. In social work, bad decisions are often catastrophic.

To further complicate an already complex process, people had found all sorts of inventive ways to cheat the system. So much time had to be devoted to mitigating potential fraud that it often did take 30 days just to check social security, see if the applicant was receiving benefits anywhere else, check IRS, DMV and child support records and so on.

While that program no longer exists, many others do — with similar levels of need, time sensitivity and complexity. Today, we have the benefit of tremendous technology; yet many states and counties still suffer from outdated systems and manual processes that prevent them from making good decisions in a timely fashion. It’s not that they enjoy inefficiency; it’s often that budgets and regulations provide for the services for constituents but not a good technical mechanism for delivering them. Many agencies are either faced with cobbling together a solution, relying on manual processes or developing a custom system – all are unworkable from the perspective of accuracy, immediacy or cost.

Meanwhile, the weak economy puts increasing pressure on programs as more people have need. Many programs find themselves lacking sufficient staff to meet growing demand.

This is why it’s so critical for social services to have access to technology that is cost-effective and easy to implement, operate and maintain. These organizations aren’t swimming in IT resources and don’t have the luxury to replace systems they use every day – many of which may be provided by other agencies and outside their control. Overlay technologies, like Prodagio Case Management, are the only viable option as they provide the benefit of keeping essential data correlated in one place and full audit capabilities so essential for transparency and compliance. When regulations change, as they frequently do, these systems can be quickly updated for the new rules. These technologies help agencies balance the needs of constituents with the fiduciary responsibility to make good decisions; and that enables the best outcomes for everyone involved.