Rapid Safety Feedback

In the race to dominate the child abuse prediction market, the world’s largest data analytics firm has its eye on what it calls “perpetrator” networks. SAS, with a global workforce of 14,000 and $3.16 billion in revenue in 2015, delivered Florida’s Department of Children and Families a lengthy technical report in August of last year.

In my last column, I discussed the new approaches to identify and target high-risk families for special attention in child welfare. Los Angeles and Allegheny County, Penn., as well as New Zealand are working on risk assessment algorithms.

Lisa Mayrose knew Florida’s Department of Children & Families needed to overhaul how it investigated phone calls reporting beaten and neglected children. “We had a rash of child deaths,” Mayrose, the regional managing director of the department in Tampa, said in an interview with The Imprint.

Yesterday The Imprint of Social Change profiled a new precautionary child welfare tool being used in Florida called Rapid Safety Feedback (RSF). You can read all about it here, but Youth Services Insider wanted to hit home why we believe it’s a huge deal for the business of child welfare.