Published Thursday, 15 March, 2007 at 01:23 PM
Minister for Child Safety
The Honourable Desley Boyle
New world first I.T. system to improve child safety is up and running
Vulnerable children in Queensland will be better protected with the launch of a new, world first, multi-million dollar I.T. system.
The Department of Child Safety's new system - the Integrated Client Management System or ICMS – went ‘live’ on Tuesday night.
Since then it has been progressively rolled out and by Friday afternoon all child safety offices will have worked on ICMS.
Announcing the achievement in Parliament today Child Safety Minister Desley Boyle said: “This is a landmark day for child protection in the Smart State.
“Queensland is leading the way. In fact to my knowledge no other jurisdiction in the world has built a comprehensive computer system designed from the point of view of the child protection worker.
“Child Safety officers will be able to punch in the name of a child or a family and within seconds see the entire history of their contact with the department.
“Previously, to obtain a history, head office had to do the search and it could take weeks. That slowed down the whole process.
“Now a child safety worker in any office in the state will instantly see these records. They can look for patterns of behaviour, see what has and has not worked in the past, and make decisions based on all available information.
“The system is also intuitive. If an officer types in a wrong spelling the file will still be found.
“Managers will be able to instantly check how many cases each officer is working on and where they’re at with each case. So managers will more easily assign work based on who is best able to take on a new case,” Ms Boyle said.
Ms Boyle said the project had taken years because it was a complex but hugely important task.
“Creating this system has required new computers, new Telstra lines, increased server capacity and the transfer of 1.7 million documents of data.
“By turning on ICMS we have fulfilled 109 of the 110 CMC recommendations. The last … workload modelling … is not far off.
“My sincere congratulations to all the staff involved especially those who’ve worked on this project for years,” Ms Boyle said
Ms Boyle said ICMS had been a joint project with the Department of Communities.
Ends
Media contact: 3224 7477
15 March 2007
The Department of Child Safety's new system - the Integrated Client Management System or ICMS – went ‘live’ on Tuesday night.
Since then it has been progressively rolled out and by Friday afternoon all child safety offices will have worked on ICMS.
Announcing the achievement in Parliament today Child Safety Minister Desley Boyle said: “This is a landmark day for child protection in the Smart State.
“Queensland is leading the way. In fact to my knowledge no other jurisdiction in the world has built a comprehensive computer system designed from the point of view of the child protection worker.
“Child Safety officers will be able to punch in the name of a child or a family and within seconds see the entire history of their contact with the department.
“Previously, to obtain a history, head office had to do the search and it could take weeks. That slowed down the whole process.
“Now a child safety worker in any office in the state will instantly see these records. They can look for patterns of behaviour, see what has and has not worked in the past, and make decisions based on all available information.
“The system is also intuitive. If an officer types in a wrong spelling the file will still be found.
“Managers will be able to instantly check how many cases each officer is working on and where they’re at with each case. So managers will more easily assign work based on who is best able to take on a new case,” Ms Boyle said.
Ms Boyle said the project had taken years because it was a complex but hugely important task.
“Creating this system has required new computers, new Telstra lines, increased server capacity and the transfer of 1.7 million documents of data.
“By turning on ICMS we have fulfilled 109 of the 110 CMC recommendations. The last … workload modelling … is not far off.
“My sincere congratulations to all the staff involved especially those who’ve worked on this project for years,” Ms Boyle said
Ms Boyle said ICMS had been a joint project with the Department of Communities.
Ends
Media contact: 3224 7477
15 March 2007