“A Day In The Life” is a new feature for TechTalk.  Communications employee Dana Graham, once a month, will follow around two of DIT’s “front-line” employees in order to gain a better understanding of their unit and job functions.  This information will be shared with all of DIT’s employees in hopes that we can better understand the inner workings of the department, as well as seek out areas for improvement.  If you know of an employee who should be featured, email Dana at grahamd3@michigan.gov

Paula Palmatier is an Information Technology Analyst within DIT.  She services the Michigan Family Independence Agency, as the project leader for the Service Workers Support System (SWSS).  Throughout her ten years of state experience, Paula has worked in the Department of Natural Resources, FIA, and now DIT.  She has an Associate’s Degree in Data Processing from Lansing Community College.

As the project leader for the SWSS application, Paula splits time between administrative tasks and programming.  Though much of her time is spent attending meetings and answering questions, she prefers writing code and analyzing programs.  She said she really enjoys coming up with solutions to problems.  Overall, Paula finds her work very rewarding because, as she says, “it affects kids.”

The SWSS program created a new, electronic system for Michigan’s social workers to use in handling their caseloads.  Foster Care, Adoption and Juvenile Justice workers use SWSS to manage caseloads, find clients, get case listings, and soon to make structured decisions regarding Michigan’s children.  In order to create the system, a team of state staffers and contractors came together to build a customer-based program.  It is “user-friendly,” with menus and pictures.  Now that the system is in place, maintenance remains a full-time job for Paula.  She oversees bug fixing, test rollouts, enhancements and new releases of the application.

SWSS is an important program in that it drives the “Help Us Locate These Kids” website, a listing of Michigan’s foster children who are considered missing.  After it was revealed that many children in Michigan’s system were missing, solutions were suggested to help find them.  When a website was suggested, Paula realized that SWSS was “ahead of the game” and already had most of the data needed to set up the site.

Another important aspect of SWSS will be Structured Decision Making.  This is a program designed to help social workers make decisions regarding service plans for children and families.  By using a series of screens, workers produce results displaying the primary strengths and primary needs of each child’s case.  These results help the worker create a service plan.  The Structured Decision Making system is mandated but allows for overrides on service plans that may not meet the needs of special situations.

Something that is still needed, Paula says, is a way to get SWSS to private social service firms.  Right now, they fill out paperwork and give it to FIA caseworkers.  The FIA employees are not involved in the day-to-day work with these children, but still include them in their caseload.

Paula thinks that her knowledge of the customer has helped in building SWSS.  “I have a real appreciation for their job,” she says of FIA’s caseworkers.  By serving as a liaison between FIA policy officers and the program developers, Paula helps streamline and improve service to Michigan’s children.  She says that is especially important due to today’s budget and staffing problems.  Social workers have huge caseloads and demands on their time are increasing.  “The more that’s asked of caseworkers, the more important technology becomes,” she says.