Colorado Trails

Challenges

Federal and state legislative directives and court-ordered mandates required Colorado to implement improvements in its child welfare and youth corrections case management systems. Program demands combined with increased demands on the State's already limited resources resulted in a critical need to integrate children and family services. A new information system was needed to support the delivery of these integrated services.

Solutions

DRC designed, developed, and implemented a federally compliant child welfare and youth correction system (Colorado Trails) and a statewide information technology infrastructure. We transferred and tailored a State Administered Child Welfare Information System (SACWIS) for the State of Colorado. The foundation for transfer functionality was provided by the DRC-enhanced New Hampshire Bridges SACWIS application. Development efforts focused on designing, developing, testing, and implementing extensive enhancements to meet the State's functional requirements for child welfare.

Colorado Trails is a client/server-based statewide system that automates functions supporting the workloads of caseworkers and administrators. The Child Welfare SACWIS application’s functions include intake, eligibility, resource management, court processing, case management, facilities management, financial management, and administration.

As a result of Colorado's integrated management of child protection and juvenile cases, DRC developed a statewide Juvenile Justice and Youth Detention Center management system to provide Colorado Division of Youth Corrections management, juvenile justice workers, and providers with the capability to track the stages a youth goes through in terms of their placements and counselor assignments. Workers can create, modify, and maintain treatment plans and release goals, and identify and assess resource providers.

The Colorado Trails system now supports almost 3,600 caseworkers throughout the State of Colorado. It has been in continuous operation since 2001.

Benefits/Achievements

Colorado Trails is increasing the safety and permanence for Colorado's children and families by:

Providing improved case management tools for caseworkers and client managers.
Ensuring access to quality services through the integration of child welfare and youth corrections services.
Distributing and utilizing child welfare resources more effectively and cost efficiently.
Increasing local flexibility, thereby, more productively matching individual needs of children and families and the services they receive.
Incorporating the principles of managed care in providing efficient and effective support services.

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