
BRUNSWICK COUNTY — A costly state-wide child welfare program designed to digitize a faulty system has been called a failure, with high-risk flaws, by many of the counties required to implement it.
Brunswick County will be required to phase in that failing system — North Carolina Families Accessing Services through Technology (NC FAST) — in September.
Related: Brunswick County Schools announces May 1 closure on day of teacher’s protest, optional staff workday
So far this year, 55 counties implemented NC FAST; 11 counties joined as pilot programs in 2018.
That leaves 45 counties — including New Hanover, Brunswick, and Pender Counties — due to go live with North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services’ NC FAST software program in the coming months. Ahead of Brunswick County’s September 2019 scheduled rollout, the county is asking the state legislature to immediately re-evaluate the program.
As of last month, the program has racked up $92 million in expenses, of which the state covered $42 million. It was intended to create a statewide child welfare shared data system. The call for a digitized system arose following scathing reports in December 2015 and August 2018 that found the state failed to meet its own performance measures to protect children within the foster care system or in-home cases. These reports found incidents of premature case closures and inconsistent services to reduce harm to children.
North Carolina’s Child Protective Services program is managed at the county level. In theory, shared data would allow counties to pull information across geographic boundaries, protecting children in abusive settings.
Instead, according to the North Carolina Association of County Directors of Social Services (ACDSS), NC FAST is “extremely cumbersome with inaccurate and unreliable data.”
Brunswick’s plea
In early February, representatives from 34 counties that at the time were required to use NC FAST met with North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) leaders to call attention to the system’s issues. Despite these efforts, system inefficiencies remain, according to a Feb. 22 ACDSS letter addressed to members of the General Assembly.
On Monday, Brunswick County Commissioners backed the county’s social services director’s move to urge local legislators to reconsider the program. Commissioners approved Cathy Lytch’s three letters addressed to Senator Bill Rabon, Representative Frank Iler, and Representative Deb Butler.
“While I realize that considerable resources have been expended on the NC FAST system for Child Welfare, a system that is burdensome is not what North Carolina needs to meet the challenges of Child Welfare,” Lytch’s letter states. “The loss of just one child’s life because of inefficacies within a system is unacceptable.”

High-risk flaws
Lytch’s letter brings attention to how improper or inaccurate data could — and perhaps already has — impact children in the state’s welfare system.
In 2018, about 133,000 children were the subject of 154,000 cases of assessments for abuse and neglect, according to a DHHS update last month. Of the assessments made, child welfare specialists found maltreatment in over 20 percent of cases last year.
Four in ten of the children assessed are five-years-old and younger. Substance abuse is the most common factor contributing to abuse and neglect cases.
NC FAST is riddled with “suspect” data, according to Lytch. In the program’s pilot counties, Lytch wrote to legislators stating that social workers are spending 70 percent of their time adding data to the “cumbersome system.” Staff turnover at these counties has been as high as 40 percent, Lytch’s letter states.
“High turnover rates lead to increased caseload sizes for the remaining staff,” she wrote. “Overworked, overstretched staff have a greater chance of making mistakes.”
Ann Hardy, Brunswick County’s manager, said she supports Lytch’s concerns. Hardy said she hopes the state will continue to work with counties to ensure smooth transitions implementing the NC FAST program.
Representative Butler said she had little connection to the program. She just received the letter this week, but said feedback on pilot programs is critical.
“I believe wholeheartedly that a pilot program or a study is just that and it is critically important that stakeholder input is not only received, but truly heard,” Butler wrote in an email Wednesday.
“If we fail to truly benchmark our efforts, we are destined to perpetuate inefficiency and that helps no one so I encourage anyone associated with the program to make their opinions known so that they can be addressed. I, for one, want a system that works well so let’s work together to make it so,” Butler said.
A DHHS representative responded to Port City Daily’s Wednesday inquiry stating that the department would provide a response to critiques included in Brunswick County’s letter. Port City Dialy will update this article with DHHS’ response if and when it receives one. Senator Rabon and Representative Iler did not respond to a request to comment.
Read Brunswick County’s letter to local legislatures, approved on Monday, below:
NC Fast Letter – Senator Rabon 3-19 by Johanna Ferebee on Scribd
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