Participants and Deployment Strategy. Each of the districts were responsible for identifying participants in the assessment. Some districts selected the entire CPS staff, while others asked for volunteers. One district selected participants based on seniority. Districts also created the deployment and device assignment strategy. In some districts each CPS staff person received their own mobile device while others had a group of CPS staff share a pool of devices. Also, in a couple of districts they employed both tactics including having some devices assigned to each person and the others shared among the “on-call” staff.

Pilot Period. Deploying devices to 20 districts across NYS is a large undertaking and it cannot be done within one day or even one week. Delivering devices to the districts is just one step in getting them ready for training and distribution. Districts assisted in the deployment but not every district had the resources to pick up where OCFS staff left off. Therefore, deployment was phased over a two month period and each district had a different pilot period length. Those districts that deployed the devices to their staff early had the longest pilot period (Putnam County DSS deploying on (10/22/08) and those who deployed last (Niagara County DSS deploying on 12/17/08) had the shortest pilot period. All district pilot periods had to end on 1/9/08 because of state reporting deadlines. Subsequently, the range of pilot period lengths ranged from 79 days to 23 days.

Available Cases To Be Worked On (Pre-Pilot vs. During-Pilot). When looking at potential changes in productivity during the pilot period, it is important to asses the level of work available to be done during that same time. In looking at the number of open cases available for CPS staff to work on during the pre-pilot period and during the pilot period, the overall number stayed relatively consistent. With this said, there were four districts that changes in their available cases to work on changed significantly. Two districts had about 22% less cases during the pilot period as opposed to their pre-pilot period. In addition, two different districts had approximately 12% more cases in the pilot period as opposed to their pre-pilot period (see AppendixF for changes in caseload from pre- pilot to during pilot periods).