San Francisco Human Services Agency
San Francisco Human Services Agency (SFHSA) serves as the foundation for three City Departments, each with a unique role in supporting San Franciscans.
Together they build well-being in their communities by offering programs that make children and adults feel connected, valued, and supported. From financial assistance to nutrition, health care coverage, employment, and protective services, SFHSA’s dedicated professionals lend support to all in need.
San Francisco Human Services Agency (SFHSA) serves as the foundation for three City Departments, each with a unique role in supporting San Franciscans.
Together they build well-being in their communities by offering programs that make children and adults feel connected, valued, and supported. From financial assistance to nutrition, health care coverage, employment, and protective services, SFHFA’s dedicated professionals lend support to all in need.
On October 20th, 2021, Launchpad held a webinar with Yunny Tai (Administrative Manager) of the San Francisco Human Services Agency discussing how Launchpad was leveraged by her team to administer human services and meet the needs of the San Francisco community. The recording from the webinar can be found below:
Key Products Used
Case Management
Business Services
Key Products Used
Case Management
Business Services
Outdated Technology in Crucial Services
Outdated Technology in Crucial Services
Human Services agencies are facing an unprecedented rise in growing needs from communities they support due to both the pandemic and rising poverty and inequality. SFHSA is dedicated to helping families and individuals in times of crisis and vulnerability. Some of the services they provide are: helping those facing homelessness, domestic violence, and those in need of food. They also help people navigate education and training programs to increase their skill set and assist in job searching and staying in those jobs by providing childcare and transportation.
Managing all of these services is challenging and complex. SFHSA utilizes a system called CalWIN, which helps to assess eligibility for benefits such as SNAP and TANF. According to Yunny Tai, an Administrative Manager with SFHSA, “CalWIN is very good at assessing people who come to us for services and then issuing those services. What it is less good at is helping us manage those services.”
She describes that when she first started working at SFHSA seven years ago, there were a lot of individual PDF forms and Word documents. Referring a family to a child care provider, for example, required a form. Services providers providing updates had to fill out another form, and each service had its own forms. An extra layer of challenge was some service providers would drop off hard copies of forms, which would need to be scanned and uploaded. It was extremely inefficient.
Modernizing Human Services with Launchpad
Modernizing Human Services with Launchpad
In 2016, SFHSA purchased Launchpad’s Case Management and Business Services CRMs to help manage everything in one centralized place and have Launchpad integrated with CalWIN. There is a nightly “data sweep” that integrates all information from CalWIN into Launchpad. “It’s all there in an organized way. If you look up a client’s case, you can see everything the client has done, all the services they receive, assessments, job placements, job applications. It’s all there, and you can see it right away.” explains Tai. In addition, because of the integration, if an update is made in CalWIN -- such as a client phone number -- the next day, case managers will be able to see that in the Launchpad system.
SFHSA also successfully integrated Launchpad’s case management system to a child care service provider’s database. SFHSA can make referrals directly to the provider and then see any updates on that referral in Launchpad, while the provider only needs to enter information into their own database.
Maintaining CRMs and addressing any changes for program requirements for services has also been a challenge in the past. Previously, they weren’t able to make edits to forms or quickly update any new program requirements. SFHSA has expressed how easy it has been to scale Launchpad to meet their needs. They have trained their team to update data fields and page layouts and adapt their system in real-time. “We’re always getting asked, can you add this? Can you build this? Can you track this? and the answer is yes. We don’t have any coding/software background, but you don’t need it to do a lot of these updates, so that’s been great,” Tai said.
When it comes to accessing information and services, there has been a growing trend nationwide to have a more extensive digital presence and self-service access. SFHSA is at the forefront of providing virtual access for their clients, employers, and service providers.
Using Launchpad, SFHSA has configured many self-service portals, including a subsidized employment program for employers. When an employer hires an SFHSA client and becomes an employee and gets paid, the employer can submit an invoice to SFHSA and be reimbursed for part of the wages. SFHSA found that with employers’ busy schedules, they wanted a way to submit invoices fast and without a lot of red tape. Employers log into Launchpad’s self-service portal, fill out the invoice there, attach the necessary documents like pay stubs, and that’s it. It is automatically routed to the correct department for processing, and they don’t have to do anything else.
The provider portals allow them to view referrals, view client information, and update referrals. Depending on what service is being provided, the referral will automatically show the necessary information and have fields for them to make their updates based on the service. For training services, they can record whether the client attended the training, attendance dates, assessments, training credentials, and any job placements that happened.
For clients, they have access to three self-service portals. One is a job seeker inquiry form, an interest form to let SFHSA know they’d like help finding a job. This is routed to staff who will follow up with them about receiving services. “It’s been very helpful to both our staff and to potential clients,” said Tai. “We’ve noticed a lot of people inquiring at night or on weekends when we may not be in office, so this allows job seekers to reach out right away and not have to wait.”
Another client portal SFHSA is excited to be launching soon, called MyLaunchpad, is aimed towards clients looking for TANF services or receiving TANF services. MyLaunchpad will have a resource center, where clients can view different available services and submit a form to SFHSA’s staff, letting them know they are interested. There will be an additional goal management section for clients receiving services where they can view goals created for them and input the progress they’ve made.