5/20/20: California Business Journal
Can a filing system change the life of a child?
For most people this question might seem so absurd that it’s not worth asking, but for Jim Damian it was an intriguing puzzle with a surprising answer.
In the early 2000’s, Damian was a child welfare social worker charged with protecting some of the most vulnerable citizens of Alameda County. His case load was large and the county’s data system made a difficult job even harder.
“The technology was very dated and paper-based. We could find some personal information online, but we had to go to a huge file room to search for case files and sometimes they would be missing, either lost or in the trunk of another social worker’s car,” he says.
Out of his frustration over not being able to quickly locate case files, Damian threw himself into learning about technology and how it might be able to help solve the problem. Even though he knew nothing about technology, he knew there must be a better way to do the work.
“I started designing tech tools for myself to manage my cases even though I wasn’t a tech person at the time,” he says. “I just started reading about how to create workflows. I researched it and devoured books. I learned it out of necessity. Nobody was showing me the way.”
Read full article at California Business Journal.