x Wyoming » Systems integration

Agency integration, 2016

• Child welfare

  Wyoming Department of Family Services (DFS)

  Centralizes child welfare administration services at the state level.

• Integration level

  Single agency integration

• Juvenile corrections

  Wyoming Department of Family Services (DFS), Social Services Division

  Does not centralize administration of delinquency services at the state level.

Coordination, 2014

• Uses for coordination
• Does not use for coordination

• Data sharing

  Facilitated through the use of statewide information systems allowing for consistent data sharing between systems.

• Committees or advisory groups

  Multidisciplinary groups that often have regularly scheduled meetings to brainstorm ways to improve systems integration.

• Formal interagency MOUs

  Collaborative agreements to guide systems integration efforts

• Informal interagency agreements

  Commonly based on historical practice, mutual trust, and recognition of the need to collaborate in order to serve dual-status youth.

• Statute and/or rules

  Rules that mandate systems integration efforts

Summary

In Wyoming the Department of Family Services (DFS) provides social services in child protection, adult protection and delinquency cases that are adjudicated in the trial court (District Court) and placed on state probation (primarily delinquents adjudicated on felony-level charges).  An administrative restructuring of DFS occurred within the past three years to integrate social services to accomplish greater cross-training and case management integration. However, much separation of delinquency services in the community remains in lesser courts that have jurisdiction over misdemeanants (generally) in either Circuit or Municipal courts.

The decentralized nature of delinquency jurisdiction creates additional coordination challenges on the data sharing, court coordination and services case management fronts. For example, no state-level sharing of data occurs and local examples are informal (based on local stakeholder relationships) and limited. Informal inter-agency collaborations exist to coordinate cases as well as cross-training for social workers, but without a formal guiding policy in state statute or administrative regulation or an ongoing oversight group.

Leadership for systems integration is provided by a core team of DFS managers that have graduated from Georgetown University's Center for Juvenile Justice Reform certificate program and have committed to a systems integration Capstone project. The Capstone project is to pilot data sharing and case management coordination innovations in the largest urban jurisdiction of the state, Laramie County (Cheyenne). The procedures explored in this pilot are the DFS office strategy to model both information sharing and case management procedures and disseminate these policies and procedures more broadly within the state.

Reported data