How Walsall uses hosting from CACI to support its use of ChildView

Walsall Youth Justice Service has been using ChildView from CACI since 2014. ChildView supports the youth justice team in its vital work supporting vulnerable young people and their families across the council. In September 2022 Walsall made the decision to take advantage of CACI’s hosting services. 

“We made the decision to remove some of the barriers that hosting the ChildView system internally created,” explains Stephen Evans, Administrative Officer (Specialist) at Walsall Youth Justice Service. “I’d have to say that it’s been excellent. There were no issues transferring the system and data across and we’ve been able to resolve any issues much faster. Before, we used to get errors and would have to go through server re-sets – this has all but been removed with near to instant fixes.” 

This has resulted in more efficient use of ChildView for Walsall Youth Justice Service. “Now, we raise a call, someone from CACI’s support team logs on and fixes the issue. Previously, we had to get a VPN code, which was a faff. Having the system hosted by CACI has proven to be much more efficient.” 

Another area which has been more efficient for Walsall Youth Justice Service has been in updating ChildView. “Absolutely, the impact of ChildView updates has been reduced,” says Stephen. “Updates previously had to go through our internal ICT team, to our team, to CACI then back to our ICT team. Upgrades could take all day. Now, CACI can fix errors immediately and run updates for us. Where the system could be down for a whole day before, now the worst case scenario is half a day. 

“Another significant factor for my team has been the availability of ChildView at the weekend, too. When ChildView was hosted internally, we very rarely had seamless access to the system at weekends due to servers being shut down. It felt like it never worked at the weekend, which negatively impacted our services. Obviously, we need to access the system at the weekend because our work doesn’t stop. The move to CACI hosting has been excellent in terms of system uptime and availability.” 

Data security is at the forefront of everyone’s minds these days. Youth justice teams process a vast amount of sensitive personal data, so security is of the utmost importance. “We always felt that our data was secure before, but there’s definitely an added layer of peace of mind in having our data hosted by the supplier,” explains Stephen. “It’s in the supplier’s hands now, so it’s one less thing to worry about. We also know that we have extensive and regular backups of our data with CACI, so if anything does go wrong, we can get back up and running pretty quickly. 

“We also have, as a result of the increased uptime, better access to our data. We always use ChildView’s full case data exchange and it’s certainly easier to use now. We sometimes experienced issues with it before, when the servers weren’t working, but now it’s always up and running which means we can leave data exchanges up and running in the background.” 

Overall, CACI’s hosting of ChildView for Walsall Youth Justice Service has facilitated the council having smoother, more efficient and more seamless access to the ChildView system and its data. “One final point I’d like to add is around the support we’ve received from CACI as well,” concluded Stephen. “Whenever we have issues, they get fixed pretty much instantly. It’s a very good part of the hosting service we’ve received from CACI.” 

For more information on CACI’s hosting service, please click here.