People visualStreamlining Child Welfare to Support Families and the Workforce

The Department of Children and Families’ Division of Safety and Permanence (DSP) has been working diligently and deliberately with stakeholders to identify ways to streamline child welfare processes and documentation, all with the dual goal of supporting the workforce and benefitting families who are involved with the system.

Reducing redundancies, providing clearer guidance and streamlining eWiSACWIS aim to give child welfare professionals more time to work directly with families. DSP is also exploring ways to simplify processes in order to achieve greater consistency in practice and outcomes across the state. These efforts will additionally make child welfare easier to understand for families and system partners.

Updates to guidance will reflect that best practice centers family voice, engages with families as partners and works with parents/caregivers to support their self-identified strengths and needs. 

As part of these efforts:

  • The Initial Assessment (IA) Improvement Project is improving the eWiSACWIS workflow and removing redundancies; considering ways to provide information to parents about Child Protective Services and the IA process at first contact; developing enhanced guidance for collaborating with tribal child welfare agencies when a child is a tribal member or potential member; and exploring best practice for engaging and working with families throughout the IA.
  • The Safety Revisions team is exploring strategies for streamlining the safety assessment and planning process; making the process of determining safety clearer and easier to understand; elevating the important role of parent/caregiver strengths and protectiveness; and building safety plans around parent- and caregiver-identified strengths and needs.
  • The Quality Case Planning (QCP) project aims to clarify and standardize child welfare case planning in Wisconsin so families and child welfare professionals report plans meet their needs. QCP will identify case planning tools that can be used consistently across child welfare practice; develop standards to make sure case planning is clear and effective; and identify and implement strategies to reduce systemic barriers to QCP.

There will be plenty of opportunities to learn about upcoming changes and ask questions well before anything is launched! Stay tuned for more information.