Now Available: Joint Guidance Regarding Information Sharing to Identify Common Clients Between Social Service Agencies
The California Health and Human Services Agency (CHHS) and the Bureau of Children’s Justice within the California Department of Justice (DOJ) have jointly clarified the conditions under which public social services agencies are permitted to use data matching to share client information. This guidance, developed in partnership with state and local jurisdictions, including the Los Angeles County Office of Child Protection (OCP), is meant to facilitate the secure integration of client records with the aim of reducing the inefficient use of resources, increasing client satisfaction, and improving program effectiveness. Aside from the potential departmental, client, and population-wide benefits of such initiatives, we were proud to have the protocols to which the CDN has long adhered regarded as standard operating procedures for the secure linkage and analysis of cross-program (and cross-agency) records.
