When it comes to social services, public-private partnerships have generally been limited to backend services. However, the revolutionary Florida-UPS partnership will not only bring basic mobility to case workers but real process improvement as well. That's a rarity in social services.

INPUT's newly released industry report, State & Local Social Services IT Market, 2008-2013, identifies case worker and inspector mobility as one of the immediate social services IT needs among the states. The Florida Department of Children and Families' (DCF) partnership with United Parcel Service (UPS) is a groundbreaking example of this demand. Gov. Charlie Crist is responding to public outrage over the disappearance and presumed murder (at the hands of her caregiver) of Rilya Wilson in 2002. He wants $10 million for handheld devises to help automate the investigative/tracking process for foster care workers. Miami-Dade and Monroe counties will run pilots with their outsourced casework provider, OurKids.

The price tag is steep for a state in a budget crunch. However, states spend hundreds of millions of dollars on foster care systems. Those systems are useless if the front-line case workers do not have the appropriate tools (i.e., garbage-in garbage-out). If the legislature funds it, this partnership will be the most talked-about advancement in social services IT since EBT.