Charmaine de Silva | Email news tips to charmaine.desilva@corusent.com
7/19/2012
BC's child and youth representative is slamming new software used by the Ministry of Children and Families.
And Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond is so concerned about it, she's making a rare public statement.
Launched in April, the "integrated case management" software was supposed to save time for child welfare workers, so they could spend less time on data entry and administrative tasks, and more with clients.
But Turpel-Lafond says the system is plagued with technical issues, that have burdened staff who are already over-worked.
She isn't confident information entered about a family or a child since April has been properly captured, and is concerned records are incomplete, with the possibility of decisions being made without all the facts.
Children and Families Minister Mary Mcneil says the problem is enormous, and they're putting another $12-million into the $100-million plus program for a fix.
"We are going to be bringing on 100 auxillary child protection workers to sort of fill-in to relieve the workload so that child protection workers can get the proper training they need for the system, we've got additional fifty auxillaries to assist child protection workers with administrative duties."
This could be the second software boondoggle the province has endured after a $100-million education software, BCeSIS, was scrapped last year.
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