Erie County Department of Social Services

The mission of the Erie County Department of Social Services (DSS) is to provide services that are needed within the community, engagement with families and children, and family wellbeing. This includes Child Protection, Preventive Services, Foster Care, Adoption, Independent Living, and Adult Services. DSS looks at their role as being family engagers, assessing what a family’s needs are, identifying safety or risks that need to be addressed, and putting services in place to address those needs.

A large percentage of DSS staff spend their day out of the office working within the community, which previously created challenges for writing and submitting notes and completing required documentation within a timely fashion. This also resulted in duplicate effort by investigators and caseworkers and delays in documentation. With Diona Investigations and Diona Visits, DSS investigators and caseworkers now access their case details while out of the office, whether online or offline, submit notes and signatures before even leaving a family, electronically receive new assignments while out of the office, and generally use their time more efficiently.

To fully support DSS’ requirements, the Diona Data Manager provides supervisors with a comprehensive view of their workers’ cases. It also allows investigators and caseworkers to record and review the time spent on various tasks, view and edit case notes, mark case notes as complete, and view forms that have been completed in the Diona solutions.

Case Study Video

Watch how DSS uses Diona Investigations to help over 250,00 children and families in Erie County