Looking for Business Analyst/Child Welfare Expert - Hartford, CT/Hybrid

Job Title: Business Analyst/Child Welfare Expert

Location: Hartford, CT

Duration: 12+ Months

WORK SCHEDULE: 30-40 hours per week - Monday - Friday, 8 AM - 5 PM. Hybrid-remote schedule.

Hybrid-remote schedule. Required on-site 20% of the time.

Selected candidates will be required to work on-site 20% of the time. Please review SOW thoroughly as this is for Child Welfare Experts to work in the capacity of Product Owners and/or Product Managers in a hybrid-agile environment.

Project/System/Program Overview

The Department of Children and Families is in the process of replacing their current system, LINK, in order to comply with the federal rules for a Comprehensive Child Welfare Information System (CCWIS) herein referred to as CT-KIND (Kid's Information Network Database), federal reimbursement, and to update the technology used by agency staff to promote efficiency and improve family outcomes. The CT-KIND Project Team is a collaboration of Business, technical and vendor staff who are in the process of system planning, design, development, testing, conversion, implementation, and initial maintenance related to the replacement of LINK with CT-KIND. This work will allow Connecticut to continue work associated with the state's expansion of the human services modernization effort of leveraging technical infrastructure and existing enterprise service infrastructure for integration with CT-KIND, and the sun-setting of LINK. The agency is currently committed to developing the next generation CCWIS and has invested significant resources to ensure that Connecticut has efficient, economic and effective tools to aid our Child Welfare Staff, Providers and the children and families of CT.

The agency exited a federal consent decree in 2022 and there are currently a number of initiatives that will help support sustaining the progress and achievements made by DCF. DCF is shifting to a prevention framework under the Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) and has also developed a CT Child Safety Practice Model. The project is using a hybrid version of the Scaled Agile Framework for enterprises (SAFe) agile methodology for development efforts and will be working with a vendor to implement a child welfare solution.

DCF works in collaboration with the Department of Administrative Services (DAS), Bureau of Information Technology Solutions (BITS) who provide technical expertise and services as well as an information systems infrastructure to the agency and its roughly 3,000 employees. There is also a DCF IS strives to improve continually improving technology services that are cost-effective and of the highest effectiveness and quality.

SCOPE OF WORK

The candidate will serve in the capacity of a Training Specialist/Business Analyst, collaborating with the technical and business staff on the CT-KIND Project in support of business processes for CT-KIND. This will require the candidate to analyze and complete documentation and training materials for CT-KIND in the area of child welfare, which includes: working collaboratively with the technical and vendor staff, regional and central office staff, DCF's Academy for Workforce Development (AWD) and community partners; participating and/or facilitating LEAN events or Business Process Mappings to map out business processes to streamline and reduce inefficiencies; assessing business readiness and participating in organizational change management activities; coordinating with social work staff for system development and design; coordinating closely with internal and external users; and, participating in communication and business readiness activities.

The candidate may also be required to analyze and document policy/practice changes (as they pertain to training needs) and work with the policy, legal and/or change management divisions at DCF.

Responsibilities

Specifically, the candidate will be responsible for working with the project team, DCF staff, the AWD, community partners and stakeholders to ensure training materials align with the new system and the content is relevant to the users and meets the business needs and criteria necessary for Child Welfare staff including but not limited to:

• The analysis of business processes and change management and business organizational readiness initiatives to support the development of training materials for CT-KIND.
• Works with the project sprint teams to fully engage the business partners to ensure a proper business functionality in the new system is documented and conveyed clearly to the users through different training methods.
• Facilitation of focus groups, meetings, presentations/mapping events and/or design sessions.
• Outreach to community partners/providers, including data exchanges/interfaces, for internal and external training needs.
  
  

In the role of the Child Welfare Expert, the following services are required:

• Assistance in the preparation and facilitation of LEAN Events, business process mapping and requirements gathering.
• Assistance in developing project documents.
• Excellent communication, presentation, collaboration, writing and interpersonal skills.
• Demonstrated ability to work collaboratively to deliver business and technical value, including collaboration with community partners/agencies.
• Must be very organized, pro-active and self-directed. Must be able to perform with minimal supervision.
• Must have very strong abstract thinking and problem-solving skills.
• Provide guidance and training to agency staff as needed.
• Coordinates with the other project team members on issues dealing with matters that cross domains and have dependencies, and helps define, document and communicate with the entire team.
• Interface with the user(s) and sponsor(s) and other stakeholders in order to determine their (evolving) needs.
• Reviews documentation and collaborates with development group, Product Owners, System Teams, and stakeholders to ensure best overall documentation is always available.
• Generates products such as business cases, feature/requirement documents, user stories, acceptance criteria, lean notes, meeting notes, decisions, action items, risks, presentations, and training materials.
• Identifies business trends and needs utilizing real data and staff feedback.
• Constantly be on the lookout for ways to improve monitoring, discover issues and deliver better value to the customer.
• Communicates key insights and findings to team members.
  
  

Required Skills And Experience

For this position, the candidate shares experience and intelligence in the field of child welfare/human services with the team to plan and accomplish goals, elicit customer/business feedback, as well as a participation in trainings. In addition, the agency requires an experienced professional demonstrating the following knowledge and skills:

5+ Years' Experience in Child Welfare or related field

Product Owner and/or Product Manager certification a plus

Knowledge of DCF's mission, policy, practice, state agencies and community partners/service providers

Knowledge of agile development methodologies, including developing acceptance criteria

Knowledge of case management systems and modern web-based capabilities/applications

Knowledge of Business Process Mapping, requirements gathering and documentation processes

Experience in facilitating large groups for presentations, LEAN Events and trainings a plus

Experience in analyzing data to draw business-relevant conclusions