CoBRIS

COBRIS logo

CoBRIS, the Community Based Resource Information System, is a web-based software solution designed for child welfare organizations to manage daily operations by front line staff and supervisors while providing performance insight and data analytics to management and executive leadership.

Architected to support complex hierarchies, CoBRIS can manage job functions and responsibilities for state departments, county offices, lead agencies or private providers. CoBRIS is even suited to support blended child welfare environments including public and fully or partially privatized community-based care.

This proprietary software solution has been supporting progressive organizations for 15 years while receiving continual enhancements to meet the demands of today’s best practices and policies. CoBRIS can be deployed as a complete solution to meet all aspects of child welfare or modularized to support states converting to a Comprehensive Child Welfare Information System (CCWIS) environment.

Implementation includes a rigorous business analysis process to ensure proper system configuration during deployment to meet any organization’s business needs and policies. CoBRIS can support real time or batch data feeds leveraging a complex set of web services for those organizations interested in maintaining external connections to legacy, modern, or other ancillary data systems.

Family

Key Software Features

Select an icon below to read more about these software features.

CLIENT MANAGEMENT

Intake, Demographics, Assessments, State Form, Attributes, Pictures, Clinical Tracking, Case Notes, Case Management, etc.

PROVIDER MANAGEMENT

Recruitment, Inquiry, Application, License, Capacity, Preferences, Exceptions, Holds, etc.

MATCHING / PLACEMENT

Configurable Algorithm, GIS, Ranking Most Appropriate / Least Restrictive, Workflows

INCIDENT REPORTING

Secure Access, Documents, Forms, Pictures, Review, Approve, Deny, and eSignatures

PORTAL

Secure Access, Documents, Forms, Pictures, Review, Approve, Deny, and eSignatures

PREVENTION

Tracking of Prevention plan (FFPSA) approved EBPs, Services Rendered, Outcomes

ROLES / SECURITY

Configurable Roles, Audit Logs, Secure Access, Supports Complex Hierarchy, and Self-Service Authentication

DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT

Integrated throughout system, supports data exchanges

FINANCE / RECONCILIATION

Track Vendors and Providers, Manages Rate Schedules, Budget, Interface to COTS Accounting, Payment Processing

PURCHASE OF SERVICE

Clinical & Service Provider Request, Authorization, Utilization Management

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

Data Visualization, GIS, Charts, Drill Down, Data Aggregation, and Optimum Processing Performance

Notifications / Alerts

Set Alerts, Holds, Tasks, Internal Approval Workflow, Email and Text Notifications
Client Management

CLIENT MANAGEMENT

Client Face Sheet:

This well-engineered feature within CoBRIS allows case managers to research or enter data directly into a simple to use screen layout. Thoughtful formatting provides staff with the single screen to view any information on a client and the ability to add notes efficiently. This feature can be customized to add or eliminate fields depending on an organization’s unique needs. The modern architecture of CoBRIS allows for easy data integration with state and local systems so that data can be pre-populated or sent to outside systems that support web services giving real time data to external stakeholders. Each child has their own face sheet summarizing demographic information, vital case information, services provided, and much more. Pictures can be uploaded for documentation purposes along with meta data such as date and time taken to monitor staff performance. Placement data is associated to every child while in care to support any documentation during the case review process.
  • Chronology of placement history
  • Demographic information
  • Case goals
  • Legal status
  • Photos and documents
  • Eligibility
  • Sibling information (in care and not in care)
  • Critical Incidents and alerts

Case Management:

CoBRIS was developed to allow front line staff and agency management access to child information quickly and accurately. Easy to read dashboards provide a view for a single caseworker’s caseload or a supervisor’s total caseload. Views like this allow case managers and supervisors to quickly review upcoming or overdue tasks to maintain compliance and high service levels. Supervisor can be given the authority to transfer entire cases from caseworker to caseworker. Indicators located on the dashboard allow the responsible party to see whether a 30 day face to face visit was performed or notify them of an upcoming judicial review. This central dashboard provides a summary of caseload awareness and the ability to drill down to a certain youth from one central location.
  • Documents vital case notes on each child
  • Entire caseload by caseworker or unit
  • Critical activities due, such as birth verifications, judicial reviews, case plans, face to face visits, medical and dental visits
  • Ability to transfer cases to other workers
  • Timelines for tasks to be completed
  • Upcoming responsibilities to forecast work and coordinate efforts
  • Documentation on cases including Psychotropic medication consults

Intake:

The Intake feature provides the entry point of data for a child needing services or can create temporary data until data reconciliation is performed with a SACWIS / CCWIS system. This function includes an advanced child search for prior history as well as capturing assessment data for placement purposes. The Intake function can also be used to launch parallel tasks for support service activities. Information about a particular child, including but not limited to demographic, sibling association, clinical, education, etc., is captured to establish the child’s file during the intake process.
  • Configurable to create temporary staging until verification is performed
  • Establishes child file
  • Can be integrated with national assessment tool such as CANS, CAFAS, State specific assessments, etc.
  • Abuse report / background
  • Triggers referral for services across continuum of care
  • Demographic, educational, sibling information captured
  • Initial assessment documentation
  • Supports placement functionality
  • Initiates support services
  • Prevention / Diversion Services tracking

Independent Living:

CoBRIS’ Independent Living feature provides the ability for those organizations that are preparing youth for a successful path to independence. Information captured and reported for teenagers include progress with education, independent living classes, and specific planned living arrangements to name a few allow supervisors and case managers to reassess progress and commit additional staffing efforts if needed.
  • Track progress on education and employment
  • Identify Independent Living class participation
  • Monitor assessment dates
Provider Management icon

PROVIDER MANAGEMENT

Provider Face Sheet:

CoBRIS maintains a provider face sheet on all providers and tracks in depth information on all provider types including specialty and residential treatment centers, traditional foster / adoptive homes, as well as private and group homes. In addition to all standard information such as address, phone numbers and additional members of the household, CoBRIS tracks a provider’s preferences, licensed capacity, preferred capacity and much more. CoBRIS provider alerts such as placement holds and service interruptions are tracked and aggregate for reporting of associated group facilities. The ability to quickly manage the entire provider network is supported by a robust list of detailed reports describing location, placement requests and history, fiscal and cost of care reporting, recruitment, retention, capacity, asset mapping, contact notes and placement acceptance rate.
  • Demographic information, household members
  • Capacity and preferred capacity to be used during matching process
  • Voluntary and involuntary holds, provider alerts, etc.
  • Tracks preferences, location of home for matching algorithm

Inquiry / Licensing:

CoBRIS provides all organizations with the responsibility of managing or expanding the provider network with the capabilities necessary to efficiently track, process, and acquire eligible foster parents in the community. CoBRIS offers an online form that can be placed on a single or multiple websites for capturing data from inquiring prospective foster parents and a sequence of screens for direct data entry by staff. Recruitment staff view inquiries from a central dashboard or view a personalized dashboard of inquiries assigned directly by a supervisor. Tasks such as emails, calls and conversations are conveniently documented to ensure timely staff follow up. Applicant tasks such as training, background screenings, home visits and pet vaccinations are also tracked for each interested home to ensure an efficient process no longer requiring clunky spreadsheets. Documents required such as applications, forms, copies of identification, floor plans and attestations are stored electronically and associated to each foster home’s case file during the pre-licensure and licensing process eliminating unnecessary paper files. The ability to review, approve, or deny any documents gives organizations the ability to ensure full compliance before final submission of a licensing packet. Anniversary or renewal dates are assigned to tasks and documents reminding staff of future follow up to ensure ongoing compliance and accurate record keeping.
  • Captures initial inquiry and track all follow up actions
  • Facilitates paperless provider file
  • Tracks renewal dates of tasks and documents
Matching / Placement icon

MATCHING / PLACEMENT

CoBRIS provides a user friendly, simple interface for conducting searches for placement matches. The placement module is designed to assist workers in making placement decisions by incorporating child and provider characteristics in order to determine better placement options based on a multitude of factors. CoBRIS can review every provider resource in the system and make recommendations for placement options based on established criteria within seconds increasing efficiency and accuracy for placement staff CoBRIS has a “dashboard” view of all placements in the system for both individual and supervisory workflow oversight and monitoring. This includes number of placements being sought, by type, length of time required to make each placement, location, reason for placement, and responsible worker. CoBRIS has multiple display options for viewing data. This view can also be sorted and filtered by data elements for enhanced monitoring and workflow management.

  • Each placement referral may be uniquely classified by urgency or type
  • Placements may be assigned to a known resource, or an automated search may be completed which matches the unique needs, requirements and proximity to removal address or school
  • Siblings may be optionally included / not included in each match
  • Sort match results by multiple criteria to allow a quick review of all possible matched providers
  • Use drill-down functionality on any potential provider match to review provider details
  • Finalize placements with approvals and subsequent reporting of acceptance / non acceptance history for both providers and youth
  • Incorporates all beds, status, availability, license holds, preferences / attributes
  • Tracks notes and contact logs on each placement
  • Map has a simple display for the removal address and the best match homes (color coded)
  • Filters on map can be adjusted directly from the map screen
Prevention Icon

PREVENTION / DIVERSION

For those families receiving prevention and diversion services, CoBRIS can assist with the tracking of support services. This feature will track basic case information as well as the assigned staff members, any case participants, case status and all case notes for documentation purposes. CoBRIS can report on referrals, any information captured and success factors.

  • Captures case information for those not in the child welfare system
  • Tracks services provided
  • Reports on referrals and success
  • Allows providers to document services rendered
  • Purchase of service icon

    PURCHASE OF SERVICE / UTILIZATION MANAGMENT

    This module manages the Purchase of Services (POS) and utilization of services provided for each child and all case participants and allows for child welfare professionals throughout the provider network to make automated-paperless requests for services, shorten the response time, and provide accountability by stamping the date and time of actions to ensure timely rendering of services. This module provides the capability to incorporate provider information (vendor name, services, fee structure, etc.) and leverage case and child information so case managers can complete the request with accurate information easily and maximize resources by funding source. The process is initiated at the closest point of service delivery including a case manager or case plan from a group conference; the request is sent to the supervisor for electronic approval, other approvals, as needed, and then to the service provider to initiate service. Funds are encumbered and tracked accordingly for accounting purposes. Each step within the process maintains auditable data for actions taken. A budgeting tool is included in this module to assist with tracking an agency’s annual budget by service category by month giving the ability for an agency to see monthly encumbrances, rendered and paid for services, as well as forecasting to determine over/under budget analysis. Reporting for cost of care and expenditures for the entire organization or by child. Financial data captured for services delivered can be exported to a COTS financial system eliminating duplicate entry as well as to the bank ACH file for payment processing.

    • Ability to request and approve services
    • Measure timeliness of services rendered
    • Analyze expenses and cost of care by child
    • Manage budgeting and expense forecasting
    • Seamless integration with the Financial module
    • Exportable data to COTS financial systems.
    Incident Reporting

    INCIDENT REPORTING

    Providing the ability to document and notify appropriate personnel of serious and non-serious incidents related to a specific child or provider is a module available in the CoBRIS product. This feature is configured by client installation to support a series of pre-populated fields, pre-defined drop downs, and free text narrative fields in order to accurately and efficiently complete each incident report. Assignable action tasks and built in workflows provide this module with the ability to send notification to relevant staff by incident type and ensure proper incident resolution. Each incident report is available with in the provider or child face sheet for easy access. Reporting by provider, child or incident type allows child welfare organizations to proactively identify trends of concern.

    • Web form or electronic form based.
    • Electronic signature capability
    • Reports by child, provider, or incident type
    • Built in workflows and notification / alerts
    Finance icon

    FINANCE / RECONCILIATION

    CoBRIS has the ability to manage significant portions of the financial functions for child welfare organizations responsible for overseeing payment issuance to vendors providing products or to service providers like counselors, foster homes, and group homes. Each provider / vendor has a financial face sheet which houses financial contact information, services offered, associated prices per service offered, and banking information for direct payment issuance. Workflows for requests and approvals facilitate streamline service requests from staff to supervisors. Monthly, date range or one-time payments can be calculated by accounting staff while providing the ability to preview payment calculations prior to final payment. CoBRIS also has the ability to facilitate payment reconciliation for missed or overpayments for previous months.

    • Financial face sheet tracks contact information, banking information
    • Manages contracted services and price schedules for multiple services offered
    • Create, review, revise, and approve invoices.
    • Ability to review past payments
    • Export payment issuance to COTS financial systems to reduce duplicate data entry
    • NACHA file creation for payment issuance directly to a provider’s / vendor’s financial institution
    Business intelligence icon

    BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE / DATA VISUALIZATION

    Today’s child welfare organizations demand better analytics and visualization from their data systems. As service offerings are expanded to meet the needs of the community and, practices and operations are refined, organizations want to know in “real time” if they are moving the needle. These organizations are also often responsible for reporting to their community partners, funders, or regulators, but typically are saddled with the task of time-consuming report generation. CoBRIS is architected to support simple data extracts for any of its users with functionality strategically placed throughout the system’s interface. The system houses a robust set of canned reports allowing users to see predefined reports and comes, but the strength of CoBRIS lies in a recently released business intelligence platform. Powered by one of the industry’s leading business intelligence and data visualization tools, CoBRIS can produce data in an easy to understand and visually pleasing manner to a variety of audiences. Access to this business intelligence platform can be dictated by the user control module. Data from CoBRIS is mapped directly to the business intelligence platform resulting in real-time data analysis and data presentment.
    • Architected for maximum responsiveness while processing large sets of data
    • Custom dashboards are designed during each implementation
    • Geographic representation
    • Able to aggregate and present data from multiple data sources
    • Flexible reporting formats
    • Designed to support data consumption from staff of all skill levels
    • Mobile responsive
    Portal icon

    FOSTER PARENT / PROVIDER PORTAL

    Building a strong network of foster and adoptive families within the community is critical to the success of child welfare. Having a diverse, qualified list of families within the network of care, alleviates many of the challenges facing family services agencies today. This challenge must be met with a strategy to encourage and simplify the way an agency interacts with interested and committed families they work with. The fact of the matter is, today’s consumer expects convenient, paperless processes that are available 24/7 while giving the assurances to the agency that required tasks and documents are submitted timely and meet all compliance and regulatory standards. This secure web-based application simplifies the management of documents and tasks necessary through the recruitment, prelicensure, and re-licensure process. Using this technology, organizations have the ability to create, manage and track a single or multiple sets of documents and tasks. It does this by leveraging a unique set of tools that are configured for each of our client installations while integrating with the CoBRIS product.
    • Electronic signature capability
    • The ability to create and customize fillable electronic forms
    • Capability to manage an entire library of created forms based on policy
    • Capability to deliver or make available a set of documents based on the organizations work flow and policy
    Access to a secure web portal (typically managed by licensing staff) provides prospective and licensed foster parents with the ability to manage, view and complete any required tasks and documents. Designed with simplicity in mind, users will view a dashboard that lists all tasks and documents by status ranging from “needs to be completed, submitted / pending review, returned or approved.” Users will have the ability to read documents, complete fillable forms, upload pictures, their driver’s license or floor plans, and even electronically sign documents that need one or multiple household members signatures.

    Packet and Document Configuration

    Licensing department policies and practices vary from agency to agency and while developing this project our team recognized this technology has to be flexible in order to meet the unique needs of each of our clients. However, there was one consistent statement, “there are a lot of forms that need to be completed through the process of recruitment and licensing, but they need to be submitted at various times based on their specific situation.” That is why we developed a method to manage documents in a packet format. Whether an organization manages 10 documents or hundreds of documents, this product can organize the delivery in a single packet or with multiple packets over time easily and efficiently. During the initial implementation, an analysis will be performed to understand the documents and tasks needed to complete the recruitment, licensing and relicensing processes. A variety of options are available to configure documents including scanning hard copies, uploading and configuring existing pdf or Word versions, to even recreating a document from scratch. All of these documents will be made available in a general library. Analysis will also be performed to define what documents are required and when they should be delivered.. Groups of documents and tasks needed for a specific purpose or phase of licensing may be combined to make up single or multiple packets.
    Roles / Security Icon

    ROLES BASED SECURITY

    CoBRIS is architected to support those organizations with a complex hierarchy and multi-tier or cross organizational management structures. User management is supported by a sophisticated control panel that allows organizations to establish rights, supervisory functions, and job functions which dictate access, data entry, approval, viewing rights and much more to the most detailed level. This control panel can also manage standard rights based on user type, geography, and authority level.
    Document management icon

    DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT

    Organizations need to provide services as efficiently as possible. In order to support this effort a document management module has been developed within the CoBRIS product so that staff and stakeholders can easily upload, view and update documents for youth and providers. This also eliminates the need for organizations to invest in expensive document management systems, however, if a child welfare organization has an established document management system, CoBRIS can be integrated to outside systems for retrieval and archival purposes. Documents required for providers are indexed within each provider’s electronic file cabinet. Effective workflow technology is integrated within the document management module allowing staff to be notified of received, outstanding and document anniversaries for those items with renewal requirements. Just like the provider electronic file cabinet, each youth has their own electronic file cabinet that can be customized based on an organization’s request. The ability to scan case plans, birth certificates, identification cards, social security and Medicaid cards, clinical assessments, educational records, and much more can be securely stored and accessed via CoBRIS allowing for an efficient and more cost-effective way to this ongoing business demand.
    • Integrated document management system for child and providers
    • Accessible based on security privileges
    • Eliminates the need to invest in local document management systems
    • Monitors and notifies when documents are expiring
    • Provides an easy way to share documents securely
    • Saves worker time and travel costs
    Notifications / Alerts icon

    NOTIFICATION AND ALERTS

    To avoid sending sensitive and confidential data via email, CoBRIS offers an alert and notification module. All communication is done through the CoBRIS secure server allowing the same security as the system itself. Options for SMS Text Alerts can be customized by the agency to notify staff of a change of any critical data element or action required. The notification module provides a way for case managers and supervisors to track events such as an upcoming judicial review and exit interview directly from the user primary dashboard.
    • Customizable alerts for outstanding tasks
    • Send notifications for upcoming events
    • Maintain secure communication about cases within CoBRIS

    Request a Custom Software Demonstration

    Interested in learning more about CoBRIS? Contact our team to schedule a demonstration of our customizable software solutions.

    New Software Solution

    A comprehensive software solution for Texas CPAs and GROs who need to comply with the latest T3C rules