Developing Collaborative Data Partnerships: The Promise and Pitfalls of Big Data in the Human Services

Every day, child and family serving agencies collect millions of pieces of data about the children and families they serve.  These data are maintained individually by each state agency for internal case management and agency-specific decision-making. Today, more than ever before, child and family serving agencies depend on this data to inform decision-making by personnel throughout the organization.  However, individual agency data is not complete; each agency has data that only allow a partial view of the well-being of the families and youth served through the narrow perspective of single agency measures of service receipt and outcomes. The family, youth and children served by state agencies are highly likely to receive services from multiple agencies, both public and private, making it difficult to fully understand the scope of need or the costs associated with addressing these needs through the lens of a single agency. 

Moving beyond a single agency perspective is necessary to serve our children and families optimally.  Child welfare agencies could benefit through a fuller understanding of the educational services provided through the schools, the type and amount of any psychotropic medications prescribed, whether there has been any juvenile services involvement, and whether the family is involved with child support, food stamps, or some other public service.  Likewise, education agencies could benefit through knowledge of a student with child welfare involvement (including changes in placement which could disrupt the educational environment).

This concept of data collaboration at the individual level for overall program and systemic improvement is “Big Data” in the human services.  But what does the term mean in the context of the human services? How can we use the information that we collect efficiently, ethically, and effectively to serve our populations and improve the overall efficiency of our programs?   Big Data at the most basic level is about distilling meaning from an incredibly large volume of information generated across a number of varied sources.  This is in contrast to the large volume of information contained in each individual agency’s own data system.  Taking the step to partner with another agency in order to improve the capacity of human service systems to serve your client populations is the first step into Big Data.

The way that agencies operate their information systems is often referred to as silos.  Each service system maintains a specific data system to meet the regulatory needs of their system and assist workers in successfully working with clients.  System collaboration can be challenging, but it is not impossible.  This roundtable will define big data in the human services and discuss four specific ways in which systems can collaborate through data sharing and what this sharing looks like:  (1) status quo siloed structure; (2) service-system silos with some cross-system sharing; (3) integrated silos cross-systems sharing utilizing an external structure; and (4) an integrated system.  The presenters will share their expertise in collaborative system development and provide examples of the different data-sharing mechanisms while engaging participants to share relevant information from their own professional experience.