Reaching operational use remains a challenge.
A June 2026 review from the US Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (HHS ASPE), examined Comprehensive Child Welfare Information System (CCWIS) implementation.
At its February 28, 2026 status snapshot, 10% of 41 new-build projects were reported fully operational. The review also reported more than $2.2 billion in combined state and federal spending claimed for new-build and transitional projects since 2016.
Across the broader group of 75 new-build and transitional projects, 23 were operational and eight had closed before becoming operational. These populations and outcomes should not be conflated: a project still in development is different from a project that has closed.
Source: HHS ASPE, June 1, 2026. Status snapshot: February 28, 2026.
Read the federal CCWIS implementation review ↗
Connected workflows deserve early attention.
A March 2025 California Legislative Analyst’s Office review of CWS-CARES described significant rework exposed during user testing. Issues included insufficient validation and dependencies across service areas. The report discussed a subsequent emphasis on earlier user involvement and end-to-end process design.
It is a dated review of a particular implementation, rather than a statement about California’s current project status. Its relevance here is the attention it draws to connected business processes and the timing of user involvement.
Source: California Legislative Analyst’s Office, March 5, 2025.
Read the CWS-CARES project review ↗
Workforce pressure is part of the modernization challenge.
The 2025 federal NSCAW III workforce spotlight found that 74.9% of supervisors reporting increased turnover selected job stress and worker burnout among the top three reasons staff had left their units. The figure is a weighted estimate; the reasons-for-leaving figure identifies 59 respondents.
Supervisors were surveyed between March 2021 and June 2022 about the preceding two years. These are supervisors’ explanations during an unusual labor-market period, not a 74.9% turnover rate, a measure of diagnosed burnout or a causal estimate of software’s effects.
Source: HHS, Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Report 2025-009, February 2025.
Read the federal workforce spotlight ↗
Administrative work can compete with time for families.
In March 2025, Michigan’s child-welfare agency described administrative responsibilities as diverting workers from family support, alongside concerns about burnout and turnover. Its proposed response brought caseworkers and other supporting roles into teams. This is an agency’s account of the problem and its intended response, rather than an evaluation of a software intervention.
Read Michigan MDHHS’s March 12, 2025 announcement ↗
A 2023 study of 258 caseworkers in one large nonprofit child-welfare agency found that work-related burnout had the strongest association with intentions to leave among the burnout dimensions examined. The researchers recommended reducing administrative demands. The study did not isolate paperwork as the cause or test whether changing software reduced actual departures.
Read “A burdened workforce,” Children and Youth Services Review, May 2023 ↗
Historical turnover estimates need their context.
A 2023 Casey Family Programs synthesis describes estimated annual child-welfare turnover of 20–40% during roughly the 15 years before COVID-19. The range is historical, and jurisdictions calculate turnover differently. It should not be read as a current national census or as the share of workers leaving because of administrative tasks.
Read Casey Family Programs’ August 29, 2023 workforce brief ↗
For Chiron, the design implication is to reduce avoidable effort in recording, finding and connecting information. Whether time saved becomes more direct family engagement depends on agency operations. These sources do not establish that Chiron has improved retention, mental health or child outcomes.
What this means for our approach.
These findings reinforce questions that should be part of modernization from the beginning:
- How do policy, field practice and existing systems fit together?
- Which differences should be preserved, and where does the agency want greater consistency?
- What happens across the entire workflow, including permissions, exceptions and downstream effects?
- How will the solution change while supporting continuity of services for children and families?
Those questions inform Chiron’s focus on agency fit, careful adaptation and verification of connected behavior. The cited research describes the modernization challenge; it does not evaluate Chiron or establish outcomes for our product.
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