Published in Children’s Voice, Volume 34, Number 1.
by Danielle Nabinger
With limited hours and bandwidth, families who foster, child welfare agency (CWA) staff, and service providers can face an intense battle against time, juggling critical responsibilities essential for child safety and family support. The challenge of managing these demands has persisted for decades and only intensified during the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the successful deployment of virtual assistance in various industries, the potential to streamline and enhance child welfare operations through virtual assistance remains largely untapped. Isn’t it time to harness the power of virtual assistance for child welfare?
Addressing Challenges in Child Welfare
Caseworkers are burdened with high caseload counts; this makes it challenging to maintain meaningful contact with families within a typical 40-hour workweek (Casey Family Programs, 2023). Providers often are limited to only a few hours weekly to meet with the children and families they serve—barely enough time to sustain progress from one session to the next. Families involved with child welfare must manage child care, home maintenance, and personal commitments alongside the added stress and time commitment of child welfare meetings or court hearings.
The work of child welfare staff also is demanding. Administrative burdens, such as extensive documentation and compliance requirements, consume a considerable portion of staff energy, leaving less time for direct engagement with families. The emotional toll of witnessing and addressing the trauma and hardships experienced by children and families can lead to secondary trauma and compassion fatigue (Administration for Children and Families, n.d.; University of Kentucky College of Social Work, 2021). Additionally, the constant pressure to ensure the safety and well-being of children, combined with insufficient resources and support, often results in burnout and high turnover rates among staff (Fuseini, 2024).
Key challenges identified by child welfare workers include:
- Navigating responsibilities and scrutiny: Both families and caseworkers can face intense pressures from regulatory bodies, the public, and other stakeholders, adding complexity to child welfare management.
- Limited time and high number of caseloads: Caseworkers struggle to provide focused attention to each case due to overwhelming caseload numbers and limited available time.
- Emotional strain and staff turnover: The demanding nature of the work and poor work-life balance leads to high rates of burnout and frequent staff turnover.
- Trauma experience and witnessing complex family dynamics: Many children, families, and caseworkers involved in the child welfare system have experienced trauma themselves, complicating their own emotional and psychological well-being and making assisting families challenging.
AI and the Child Welfare Workforce
In recent years, AI—technologies that use computers to perform tasks that usually require human intelligence and involvement—has begun to revolutionize the way in which certain tasks are performed. In finance, for instance, AI performs automated trading and fraud detection, processing vast amounts of data at speeds unattainable by humans (Angarola & Placeres, 2023); in customer service, AI-powered virtual assistants handle inquiries, enhancing customer satisfaction with immediate responses (Jobanputra, 2024).
Building on these advancements, GoMo Health, a New Jersey-based consumer engagement company focusing on behavioral science, technology, and wellness, is using AI and the latest research in human motivation and brain development to enhance virtual assistance in health care and child welfare. The GoMo Health Virtual Assistant program works by meeting users where they are and supporting them through information sharing, enhancing decision-making skills, and guidance toward achievable actions. The program offers numerous benefits for child welfare staff and families involved in the child welfare system, providing consistent engagement, real-time connections, and proactive interventions. It supports various needs through a structured process, beginning with the enrollment of specific groups and continuing with tailored support based on individual feedback.
The program also connects health and social service providers—both clinical and non-clinical—to facilitate direct referrals as needed. This integration ensures that families receive support aligned with their specific needs. To monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the virtual assistant program, a user-friendly reporting center is available. This center compiles data and metrics related to key performance indicators (KPIs), providing insights into the impact of the program on enhancing family support, improving response times, and creating better outcomes within the child welfare system.
The Virtual Assistant program works to:
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The Science Behind the Virtual Assistant Program
The program utilizes a personalized science of engagement, BehavioralRx®, to deliver specified, evidence-based, informed interventions, enhancing engagement and outcomes. This approach uses behavioral psychology to foster trust and encourage healthier behaviors, and cognitive neuroscience to help develop lasting habits through timely support.
BehavioralRx science supports the Virtual Assistant program by encouraging new behaviors through short, focused content that aligns with natural learning processes. This continuous engagement helps form new neural pathways, turning positive behaviors into automatic responses. The personalized messages, care content, and support strategies are tailored to individual needs, promoting sustained behavior changes.
The program supports these changes by providing personalized guidance in real time. Using AI and secure messaging, the program delivers tailored interventions and reminders, ensuring timely support. Continuous engagement means regular communication, which supports keeping individuals on track with their CWA goals. The addition of psychosocial support reduces stress and feelings of isolation, boosting motivation and resilience.
By applying BehavioralRx science to foster care, welfare, and social services using the Virtual Assistant program, the quality of life for staff, caregivers, and youth within these systems can be enhanced. This science supports family unit preservation, prevents out-of-home placements, and assists caregivers with health knowledge and early intervention tools.
Case Study Insights: Virtual Assistant Integration to Manage Complex Cases
The case studies below illustrate the profound impact that targeted, technology-enhanced interventions can have on complex health and social issues, demonstrating substantial benefits for individuals and communities alike. These insights not only reinforce the effectiveness of the Virtual Assistant programs but also highlight the potential to transform care delivery and support within the child welfare and health care systems.
Case Study 1: Autism Early Detection with Amerigroup Community Care of Georgia
Amerigroup Community Care of Georgia has partnered with GoMo Health to launch an Early Intervention Virtual Assistant program specifically tailored to families with children aged zero to four and those with a child already diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This innovative program supports caregivers by (a) aiding in the early detection of ASD; (b) providing timely access to crucial resources; and (c) offering ongoing psychosocial support to ease the burden on caregivers.
This evidence-based digital therapeutic integrates behavioral science principles to ensure caregivers adhere to appropriate autism screenings and milestone tracking. Upon a child’s enrollment, caregivers receive personalized SMS messages supporting the monitoring of key developmental milestones, reminders for pediatric screening appointments, and content delivery across four main categories—general autism information, educational resources, caregiver stress management, and activities of daily living (ADL)—to support the physical and emotional management of an autism diagnosis.
Enrollment and engagement:
- 84,900 members enrolled in the early detection program
- 5,407 enrolled members actively engaged in the early intervention programming for diagnosed cases
Retention rate:
- 99.6% retention rate
Montana’s largest treatment facility for adults with substance use and co-occurring disorders, leverages the Recovery Pathways program developed in collaboration with GoMo Health. Originally implemented for participants in seven different treatment courts, the program’s success led to an expansion across all the Rimrock outpatient substance use disorder and mental health programs.
The goals of Recovery Pathways include addressing social determinants of health, enhancing therapeutic engagement beyond in-person sessions, reducing relapse rates, and increasing program completion rates. The program emphasizes a holistic approach that respects the personal circumstances of each patient and delivers tailored support through personalized messages, care content, surveys, and chat for up to a year post-treatment. Key program outcomes are included below:
Retention and relapse:
- 91% retention rate
- 10% relapse rate (significantly outperforming the national relapse rate average of between 40-60% within the first year of recovery)
Employment and safety:
- Nearly 50% increase in full-time employment
- 6x improvement in the safety of living environments
Mental health and completion:
- 89% program completion rate
- 12% rise in participant self-esteem
Legal outcomes:
- Zero re-arrests among participants (significantly outperforming the national recidivism rate, which is approximately 16.4% within the first year and 27.5% within two years, highlighting the program’s effectiveness in supporting long-term recovery and integration into society)
Implications and Benefits of Virtual Assistant Integration in the Child Welfare Field
The integration of the Virtual Assistant program in child welfare promises to bring positive change to the field by maximizing efficiency, enhancing data analysis, and supporting professionals through scalable, personalized interventions. This program, along with strategic AI implementation, offers the potential for significant improvements in operational efficiency and quality of care, benefiting child welfare staff and the families they support. These features not only enhance care effectiveness but also substantially improve outcomes for all parties involved. This underscores the transformative potential of virtual assistant technologies in revolutionizing child welfare practices.
Enhanced support and trust:
- Ensures that families and staff feel continuously supported, fitting seamlessly into their schedules and providing real-time connections with easily digestible, bite-sized information when needed most
Crisis management and proactive care:
- Offers prompt responses in critical situations, which may reduce ED visits and aid in monitoring emerging needs for proactive crisis intervention
Operational efficiency and privacy:
- Streamlines daily operations with a virtual infrastructure that improves staff workload and caseload management while respecting family privacy and preferences
- Provides ongoing training and updates for caseworkers, all of which are essential for effectively managing the limited 168 available weekly hours
Child welfare staff development and data insights:
- Enhances job satisfaction and effectiveness by providing accessible resources and virtual companionship
- Generates crucial data insights for improving service delivery and outcomes
Innovative outcomes:
- Leverages technology, AI, and behavioral science to significantly enhance outcomes
Recruitment and retention:
- Aids in recruiting and retaining CWA staff and foster families
Impactful interventions:
- Introduces new methods that positively affect family interventions
Scalability and diversity:
- Effectively scales to diverse populations, ranging from 10 to over a million users
To learn more, visit https://gomohealth.com/childwelfare-system-and-foster-care/.
Danielle Nabinger is a leader in child welfare, specializing in strategy, planning, policy development, and systems improvement, with over 30 years of experience. For the last decade, she has consulted for Amerigroup Community Cares of Georgia, advising executive leadership on program design, strategy, and community engagement to enhance safety, permanency, and well-being for children in foster care, adoption assistance, and select juvenile justice programs. Previously, Danielle was the Director of Permanency for Fulton County, managed child welfare outcomes, and worked as a data administrator for the Division of Family and Children Services under the Kenny A. Consent Decree. She has also provided consulting and training on child welfare across multiple states for the National Resource Center on Child Maltreatment. Danielle earned a BA from Bucknell University and an MSW in administration, policy, and planning from Rutgers University.
References
Administration for Children and Families. (n.d.). What is secondary traumatic stress? https://www.acf.hhs.gov/trauma-toolkit/secondary-traumatic-stress
Angarola, J., & Placeres, A. (2023, December 26). How AI is shaping customer service in financial services. BizTech. https://biztechmagazine.com/article/2023/12/how-ai-shaping-customer-service-financial-services
Casey Family Programs. (2023, August 29). How does turnover in the child welfare workforce impact children and families? https://www.casey.org/turnover-costs-and-retention-strategies/
Fuseini, S. (2024). “Suffering in silence”: How social workers in child welfare practice experience and manage burnout. Children and Youth Services Review, 166, 107939. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740924005115
Jobanputra, K. (2024, August 22). Customer service: How AI is transforming interactions. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesbusinesscouncil/2024/08/22/customer-service-how-ai-istransforming-
interactions/
University of Kentucky College of Social Work. (2021, November 12). Compassion fatigue in social work: Causes, prevention, and treatment. https://socialworkonline.uky.edu/resources/article/compassion-fatigue-social-work/