How has the human services industry changed in the past 20 years?
Hi, I'm Joel Potts. I'm the executive director of the Ohio Job and Family Services Directors' Association, and it really is an honor and a pleasure to be able to take part in the 20-year celebration of the Northwoods solution. I was there from the very beginning and a lot has changed. A lot more things are automated than they used to be, but so is our funding opportunities, the way that we interact with clients, the staffing. Just about everything is different from the way that it was. And Northwoods has been there every step of the way to really help us find a new way to better serve the clients in the state of Ohio and achieve better outcomes for all of the people we serve in the JFS system.
How has the state's partnership with Northwoods evolved over the years?
It became abundantly clear during the 2008 recession of just how important Northwoods was. It allowed those counties that had the solution to redo their entire operations to spend a lot less time doing the administrative work and a lot more time really helping the residents that were suffering through that economic period. It was also during that time that counties started to come up with shared service solutions and the Collabor8 project, which was very much built on having the Northwoods capability so that those counties could work their cases from the various agencies and start on a lot more over the phone instead of in person. We couldn't have been successful through the recession, couldn't have been successful with shared services, had it not been for Northwoods. It took several years from when I first began at the association, but getting this statewide solution was absolutely paramount and one of the primary goals that I was given by my board, and we finally achieved that in 2018. As a vendor, you've been the consummate partner. Teams at Northwoods know their county agencies, their needs, their goals, and they continually strive to help those agencies to better serve the clients that we have.
Where do you see the industry heading next?
Over the next 20 years, I think we're gonna continue to see a lot more automation. We're not gonna get more dollars for the number, for the amount of work that's expected of our county agencies, so we've got to be more efficient. We've got to spend less time in the transactional activities and a lot more time in transformational activities, helping individuals really improve their lives and their outcomes. We're gonna see more remote work, and in order to do that, workers need access to information and data. With hundreds of millions of documents already existing in the EDMS system, we need to just see more of that and continue to work with that. And I think remote work doesn't just mean work from home. It means serving the client where they are and where they need help.
How will Northwoods help power the future of human services?
Traverse to me is just a brilliant system and opportunity that shows us that we now can be remote in how we serve our clients, we can be where they are, and it just gives us a great opportunity to get out of the brick-and-mortar structures and to be a better, stronger government for the people we serve.
Northwoods has laid a foundation for success, and we need to build on that. We need to help government work smarter and provide a better client experience. Thank you all for all that you do and congratulations on 20 years and for another 20.
