Canadian Child & Family Services:

A Digital Transformation

Canadian Child & Family Services:

A Digital Transformation

Digitizing Canadian Child & Family Services: Signority’s Impact

September 26th, 2023

Children represent the future, and families are the cornerstone of our society. In the heart of community resilience and strength lies Child & Family Services organizations. They play an indispensable role in ensuring the safety, health, and overall well-being of our most vulnerable members – our children. Yet, like many sectors with deeply embedded traditional processes, Child & Family Services have often been bound by paper-heavy methods, which can delay vital interventions and take crucial time away from direct service.

Signority: Transforming Child & Family Services with Digital Solutions

Child & Family Services encompass an array of responsibilities, from safeguarding children against harm to providing necessary support to families in crisis. Each interaction, whether it’s an initial intake, assessment, or even volunteer onboarding, requires multiple layers of documentation. Historically, this has meant paper forms, manual logging, and significant administrative overhead.

The Practical Benefits of Signority’s Digital Approach

Streamlined Consent Processes: Child & Family Services often require consent forms for various activities, including medical treatment, counseling, urgent response service plan (URS), and educational support. Signority’s digital signature solution simplifies the process of obtaining and managing these consents. Social workers can send consent forms electronically, and clients or guardians can sign them from anywhere, reducing delays and ensuring that necessary permissions are in place promptly.

Efficient Document Signing: Whether it’s agreements, service contracts, or parental consent forms, Signority enables Child & Family Services to send, receive, and sign documents quickly and securely. This efficiency is vital in situations where time-sensitive decisions must be made to protect the well-being of children and families.

Data Security: Signority hosts Canadian customer data exclusively within Canada. Our platform employs advanced encryption and security measures to safeguard sensitive information. Given that Child & Family Services handle confidential data daily, Signority’s robust security features, including masked tags for data security, guarantee that personal identifiable information (PII) remains confidential and fully compliant with data protection regulations.

Environmental & Cost Savings: By shifting away from paper-based processes, agencies can reduce their reliance on physical documents, saving money on printing, storage, and transportation. Additionally, this eco-friendly approach aligns with the broader societal trend towards sustainability.

Access from Anywhere: Signority’s cloud-based platform allows social workers and professionals to access necessary documents from anywhere with an internet connection. This accessibility ensures seamless service delivery, even when working remotely or in the field.

Efficient Onboarding: For Child & Family Services that rely on volunteers or need to conduct background checks, Signority’s digital signature solution streamlines the onboarding process. Volunteer applications and criminal record checks can be seamlessly integrated, ensuring that the agency has the right people on board quickly and safely.

Audit Trails for Accountability: Signority provides audit trails for every signed document, enhancing accountability and transparency within the organization. This feature is particularly valuable in cases where document validity and compliance are essential.

Faster Response Times: Digital signatures expedite the signing process. Social workers can get the necessary approvals in place swiftly, reducing response times and ensuring that children and families receive the support they need without unnecessary delays.

These benefits underscore how Signority’s digital signature solution is uniquely positioned to meet the needs of Child & Family Services by simplifying administrative tasks, ensuring data security, and enhancing efficiency in a sector where time and accuracy are critical for protecting vulnerable children and families.

Ultimately, the mission is clear. It’s not just about digitization for the sake of modernity. It’s about providing Child & Family Services with the platform they need to do their job more efficiently, so more time and resources can be allocated where they matter most: directly with children and their families.

By leveraging the power of Signority, Child & Family Services organizations can ensure that every child’s story is not just heard but also acted upon with the efficiency, care, and urgency it deserves.

Signority is proud to be a part of this transformative journey, offering solutions that make a tangible difference in the lives of many.

Educational Institutions Need to Implement eSignatures

In order to keep up with the ever-changing digital world, educational institutions need to implement eSignatures into their operations. Technology has had a tremendous impact on the education sector, and it’s important for schools and colleges to keep up with the latest trends. Electronic signatures are one of the many ways that institutions can modernize their processes.

Here are three reasons why eSignatures are so important for schools:

Efficiency: When administration staff is bogged down with paperwork, it can significantly impact their ability to complete other tasks. eSignatures allow you to sign documents and approvals quickly and easily, without the need for a physical signature.
Security: Documents signed with eSignatures are more secure than those that are not, as they cannot be tampered with or modified.
Compliance: Many government agencies and organizations require electronic signatures for compliance purposes. Using eSignatures can help your school stay compliant with regulations.

Security wise eSignatures a lot more secure than paper. Paper can get lost, stolen, someone can copy it without someone knowing, and it can easily get damaged resulting in the loss of information. The most secure signature is a Digital Signature. You can learn more about the differences between eSignatures and Digital Signature here.

To be compliant you have to follow certain guidelines and practices that your local governments or industry regulators have set up to ensure the security and safety of the documents and their signatures.

For example, some Canadian educational systems cannot have data that is stored off-site on a server that is located outside of Canada. The data also cannot go outside of Canada’s borders while in transit. This means you have to find an eSignature service like Signority.

Signority guarantees your data stays safe and secure in Canada, both in transit and at rest. This means your student’s data will never travel or reside outside of Canada’s borders.

Now, let's look at efficiency.

When I think of paperwork and schools, as a parent, I think of registration forms and permission slips. Let’s use these as our use case.

Each year you have to confirm the number of students who will be returning as well as register any new students. What are some
of the issues you have probably faced when going through this process.

A rush of last-minute parents coming in to register their child(ren) the week before school starts.
Incomplete and missing paperwork with signatures in the wrong place.
Trying to get the signatures of both parents when they are divorced or separated.

With an eSignature platform you can automate the whole process and ensure that all the information is given where it’s required. Now let’s see what the top 6 features that will help you the most.

Automated workflow. With the automated workflow feature set who to send the document package to and in what order. Each recipient receives an email notifying them they have a document. You can even set up auto-reminders that go out if someone takes too long to sign.
Templates. Setting up the school registration forms as templates means you are always ready to go – all you have to do is enter the parent’s name(s) and emails. And if you need to do 2, 20, or 200 at once, use a bulk sign template to send them in less than 5 minutes!
Multi-document package. One document package can consist of the registration form health forms, the list of required supplies, and the waiver. Just upload whatever files you need in the package one at a time or using bulk select. They can even be different file formats.
Automated email reminders. Forget having to pick up the phone or send another email. This feature allows you to determine when and how often the parents or school staff and officials will receive an automatic email reminder if they haven’t signed the document yet. This simple nudge encourages them to do their part while saving you time.
Template Link. Put a registration form on the school website so parents or students can register for an event. You can even put the registration form online for new student registrations.
Masked Tag: A masked tag will take any information entered into it, encrypt it, and conceal it from everyone in the workflow. This feature is especially useful for a student’s personal information like their health card numbers, student numbers, etc.

Having and using these six features in any eSignature platform can save you and your staff time and increase productivity.

BONUS - you help save the planet

There is one more really big benefit to using eSignatures. Sustainability. How much paper and printer/copier ink do you go through each year? I encourage you to check your budget. I’m sure you will find on the paper side, it’s a lot of trees. Remember, “Today is the opportunity to build the tomorrow you want.” ~ Ken Poirot.

Finally, I would like to ask you to consider the other savings you get along with eSignatures being a green technology. You save time and money.

Consider the time it takes to:

chase people for the signed documents,
having someone travel to deliver the document,
and then filing the document or scanning it back into your system.

Adopting eSignatures into your operations saves an average of $20 per document. Think about that. They save you time, money, and the environment. But don’t take our word for it, see for yourself with this article on Financesonline.com.

If you would like to learn more about eSignatures and the features available that may help you Signority’s tutorial page is a great resource.

And to see how well an eSignature Platform would work for you then I encourage you to take advantage of our free no obligation 2-week trial.

Look for my next blog where I write about Working from Home and eSignatures.

Have a great week everyone