Case Commons

Case Commons' mission is to transform public sector human services through user-centered design & technology. We're pursuing this vision through the development of Casebook - the first collaborative, family-centered case management system for child welfare, enabling workers serving the most vulnerable families and children to be more effective and efficient via new web-based software tools.

Case Commons, Inc. has three goals:

•  Changing Lives: above all, Case Commons, Inc. seeks to improve outcomes and life opportunities for vulnerable children and their families

•  Helping the Helpers: Case Commons, Inc. believes new technology must support the frontline workers who serve our nation’s most vulnerable children and families—not replace or hinder them

•  Measuring Results: Case Commons, Inc. will use the latest technology to improve the quality and timeliness of data so that policymakers and caseworkers can understand what works, and what doesn’t—and then use that knowledge to make smart choices

In addition to continuing to develop Casebook for child welfare providers around the country, Case Commons, Inc. is helping to drive a broader conversation about how to improve technology innovation in government, ensuring that government technology makes lives better for people every day.

Casebook and the Annie E. Casey Foundation

Casebook was first developed by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the leading philanthropy dedicated to child welfare in America. Case Commons, Inc. shares the Foundation’s mission of improving the well-being of vulnerable children and families and continues to receive Foundation support.

A 21st Century Human Services Solution

Casebook® is an innovative, internet-based application that uses Web 2.0 technology to transform child welfare and human services case management. Casebook is the response to years of frustration among child welfare and human service professionals and leaders who have toiled with information management systems that are difficult to use and expensive to maintain—and that fail to deliver for vulnerable children and families.

Originally developed as an initiative of the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a national leader in child welfare policy and practice, Casebook is designed to revolutionize child welfare and human services, by providing states and localities with 21st century technology tools to help caseworkers do their jobs more effectively, enable administrators and supervisors to make smarter decisions, and ultimately better serve the children and families who need help most.

Read more about the Casebook solution.

Technology Changing Lives

Casebook has already been launched through Casey Family Services, a direct service agency of the Annie E. Casey Foundation. Foster care is a critical aspect of public sector child welfare and a focus of the Annie E. Casey Foundation's work. Casey Family Services caseworkers in seven states are currently using Casebook. In addition, Case Commons has a contract with its first State customer and is hard at work preparing to deploy Casebook as the core of the State's child welfare case management system in 2012.

Casebook is rapidly spreading - check back often for updates on how Casebook is helping to improve child welfare across the country.

A New Conversation

America’s future depends on government adopting a forward-leaning approach to information technology. The technology gap between government and the rest of society is growing, despite the fact that many new technologies have unrealized potential to change the way we govern. They can help government reach Americans more directly; they can reduce waste; they can throw open the doors to make government more transparent; and they can transform the public sector from a follower into a technology innovation leader.

Casebook is a powerful example of technology innovation at work, and Case Commons is helping to lead a growing movement to revolutionize how government puts technology to work for Americans.

Read our paper on Casebook and the future of government innovation.

Analytics and Research

Casebook Analytics is key to our focus on results. We apply leading-edge technologies, such as predictive modeling, longitudinal data analysis, factor analysis, probabilistic risk assessment and text mining, to equip caseworkers to make sense of their data and, in turn, make sound decisions. We help agency managers, researchers and policy makers understand what works, what doesn't work and why. We collaborate with researchers from leading universities and other policy research organizations to understand what socio-economic factors are mostly responsible for child abuse and neglect. We analyze the data at the disposal of Casebook to prove statistical hypotheses and plan to publish the results of our findings in conferences and journals related to public policy research to share the knowledge with the community. Our goal is to make policy and practice based on evidence the norm in human services.

What sets Casebook Analytics apart from conventional reporting and business intelligence applications?

• Person-centricity. Casebook Analytics is based on Casebook's unique longitudinal data model. Casebook is built not around units of work, such as cases, but rather around persons, relationships and groups, such as families and households. That enables our users to follow individuals and families over time.

• In-place metrics. Casebook embeds data in the context of the work that caseworkers do every day. Keeping progress to grade "front and center" can, for example, encourage a caseworker to pay closer attention to school enrollment and educational stability.

• Social features. Casebook encourages users to interact with data visually, formulate hypotheses and share insights. We believe that Analytics should inspire conversations in which users can not only tell the story behind the data, but also confidently tell the story with data.

Our Research team continuously explores Casebook data to better understand which programs, services and elements of case practice lead to better outcomes for children and families. Our goal is to speed up the analytical cycle through:

• Predictive modeling. We develop and prove predictive algorithms that can provide immediate feedback about, for example, family risk levels, to caseworkers. We apply advanced data mining technologies to identify the strongest explanatory variables.

• Evidence-based product features. We factor the results of our research into new product features that support good practice.

• Support for self-evaluation. Most importantly, we directly engage frontline caseworkers and supervisors in the research process by giving them tools for data exploration and self-evaluation, so that they can readily share and test their hypotheses.