Structured Decision Making (SDM)

The National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD) has increased its profile in the predictive analytics field with a series of webinars and other resources aimed at helping child welfare agencies appropriately use these data-driven tools.

Social worker Ruby Guillen’s shift at the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), the largest child welfare agency in the U.S., starts at 4 p.m. and ends at 2:30 a.m.—except when serious incidents occur and keep her on the job even longer.

Los Angeles County struggles to strike the right balance between human judgment and increasingly sophisticated predictive tools when determining the risk that a child will be abused.   On weekdays, calls to Los Angeles County’s child abuse hotline reach their peak between 2 p.m.