At Binti, we recognize the critical role of data in driving positive outcomes for children and families. We are excited to announce the release of the Family Finding Efforts Report, designed to provide a comprehensive overview of outreach efforts conducted to connect children and youth with their families, relatives, and kin. 

This report is generated as a fully formatted Excel document, seamlessly compiling data from the Relationships Dashboard including:

• A comprehensive list of identified relatives, fictive kin, and other potential connections.
• A detailed summary of all contact logs, showcasing the communication and outreach made to engage these connections.

With this robust level of detail, agencies can effectively showcase the proactive steps they have taken while providing essential documentation to demonstrate evidence of family finding activities This report is suitable for sharing with courts or other stakeholders, highlighting the agency’s reasonable efforts in family engagement.

Learn more about Binti's Family Finding & Engagement Module 

Sending notification letters to relatives is a vital step in the family finding process. It can often feel overwhelming, with the need to gather contact information from various sources, create customized mail merges, and manually document each outreach. We are excited to make this process faster and more efficient with our new Bulk Relative Notification Letter feature.

With Bulk Relative Notification Letters, you can:

• Simplify Letter Creation: Built-in merge fields let you customize ready-to-print letters with data already saved in Binti—such as names, addresses, and more—eliminating the need for manual data entry.
• Generate Multiple Letters at Once: Our intuitive interface allows you to easily select recipients and create all of your letters with just a few clicks.
• Document Outreach Automatically: Letters are saved in contact logs, so you no longer need to spend time manually tracking your communications.

This feature will streamline the outreach process and ensure more children remain with family.

Learn more about Bulk Relative Notification Letters in our Help Center

Children thrive with family—and Binti's new Potential Kin Online Search, part of our Family Finding & Engagement Module, is transforming how agencies find relatives and kin. This new tool makes it easier than ever for agencies to quickly identify and connect children with family directly from Binti.

Powered by Thomson Reuters Risk & Fraud Solutions, this advanced feature automates the kin search process by simplifying robust datasets into the most relevant information for child welfare staff, dramatically reducing manual effort. Social workers can now spend less time sorting through reports and more time focusing on what truly matters—building meaningful relationships with families. With its streamlined, user-friendly workflow, the tool ensures that every potential family connection is thoroughly explored, greatly increasing the chances of placing children with loving, familiar relatives.

Learn more about Binti's Family Finding & Engagement Module

Since the beginning of 2024, we have introduced over 180 feature enhancements to help you work more efficiently and stay connected with the children and families you support. We also launched our latest product, the Family Finding & Engagement module, designed to improve outcomes in locating kin and developing supportive networks for children. Stay up-to-date with our latest enhancements by subscribing to our Release Notes.

Read on to discover our top 10 enhancements so far this year. If you have any questions, feel free to contact to your Customer Success Manager or our Customer Support team.

Licensing

• Targeted Email Campaigns: Reach caregivers more effectively with targeted email campaigns based on Family Tags or specific application templates. This enhancement ensures your communications are highly relevant, saving you time and increasing engagement.

• Insightful Reporting: Gain critical insights with our new Barriers to Licensing and Recruitment Sources reports. These tools streamline your application process, speed up licensing, and optimize recruitment strategies with graphs, data tables, and CSV download options.

• Child Turning 18 Notification: Ensure your licensing files are compliant by receiving timely email notifications when the child of a licensed caregiver turns 18. This ensures you can promptly handle necessary documentation.

• Automatic Status Change Notifications: Keep caregivers informed with custom notifications for status changes such as approvals or denials. This improvement streamlines communication and enhances the caregiver experience. For setup assistance, please contact your Customer Success Manager.
• HEIC to JPEG Conversion: Photos uploaded in HEIC format (iPhone default) are automatically converted to JPEG, ensuring you can view any photo that is uploaded by a caregiver.

Caregiver Management

• Respite Placement Tracking: Placement searches can now be conducted for respite without disrupting the active placement. When closing a respite search, you are redirected to the Add Respite page, streamlining the process and ensuring accurate placement records.

• Provider Not in Binti: A new placement type lets agencies manually enter information for providers not listed in Binti, such as unlicensed kin, simplifying the placement process.

• Multiple Case Workers Assignment: Multiple permanency/case workers can now be assigned to a child, offering greater flexibility and support.

• Improved Ordering of Child Requirements Page: Quickly access the most critical tasks with our updated child Requirements page, now sorted to display the most recently generated requirements at the top.

Family Finding & Engagement

• New Module Launch: Our Family Finding & Engagement Module streamlines family finding workflows, helping you track and identify supportive relationships, and engage key individuals in a child’s life to assist with placement decisions and build strong support networks. With integrated Thomson Reuters CLEAR search capabilities, Binti offers a comprehensive solution for conducting thorough family finding efforts. Connect with your Customer Success Manager to learn more!

We have made significant improvements to our ability to track the background check exemption process!

Now, when creating an exemption in Binti, users will experience a new interface that robustly captures information relevant to the exemptions process. This includes details about the individual requiring an exemption, arrest and conviction records, interview and record request tracking, recommendations, and the final decision.

Alongside this enhanced functionality, we have also released the Background Check Exemptions Report. The report allows administrators to view and export agency-wide data on exemptions, offering valuable insights and supporting informed decision-making.

Learn more in our Help Center

Finding caregivers in Binti is now easier and faster. We are excited to announce that caregiver search is now available in the navigation bar!

Our caregiver search feature enables you to search using a caregiver's name or family ID. Results are optimized to include similar-sounding names or closely matching family IDs, ensuring you can quickly locate the correct caregiver.

Previously, searches could be performed via the homepage, but this update allows you to initiate a search from any page in Binti. The search bar will still be available on the homepage for one more week, after which it will be replaced with a prompt encouraging you to use the navigation bar.

Try out caregiver search today by clicking on the magnifying glass in the navigation bar!

We are excited to introduce License Appeals Management in Binti! When a caregiver's license is denied or revoked, an option to initiate an appeal will display on the Change Application Status page. Agency workers can track various stages of the appeal process, including appeal submission, hearing details, and final outcome specifics.

In addition to this feature, we are also rolling out a License Appeals report to enhance agency-wide oversight. This report consolidates appeal data across the agency and can be conveniently exported to a CSV file for customized reporting.

With these updates, we provide a robust solution that enhances your agency's ability to analyze and manage appeals on a broader scale.

Learn more in our Help Center

We have improved the ability to communicate with current and potential caregivers! Over the years, our Customer Success Managers have sent hundreds of email campaigns to caregivers on behalf of agencies. We are thrilled to announce that this feature is available immediately as a self-service option! Please note that only Agency Admin users have access to this tool (this does not include Approvals Admins).

Email campaigns can target caregivers based on their status in Binti and primary language. Using our powerful content editor, you can style text, insert images, and attach files to your messages. Messages are automatically saved in a case note for each recipient, eliminating the need to spend time on documentation.

Learn more in our Help Center

Last Wednesday, our team successfully completed 30 updates aimed at refining the user interface, improving data management and display, as well as enhancing documentation and record keeping features. These updates will roll out to all Binti users this week and next.

We will highlight a few of our favorite enhancements below. We also encourage you to visit our Release Notes Hub to learn about all of the improvements in detail as they are released. If you have any questions or want additional information, please reach out to your Customer Success Manager.

User Interface

Easier to understand background check information on the Caregiver Applications dashboard
Release Date: 10/05/23

In the past, you may have seen "0/?" in the background checks column of the Caregiver Applications dashboard and wondered what it meant. We have replaced this with clearer messaging that describes the necessary action to calculate a total number of required background checks.

Documentation & Record Keeping

Record date of birth for applicants and co-applicants
Release Date: 10/05/23

We now allow agency workers to record a crucial piece of information: the date of birth for applicants and co-applicants. This information will auto-populate to caregiver and agency forms, saving time in data entry. Additionally, we have included this data point in our API, which ensures that the information remains consistent across your systems.

Data Management & Display

Family Tags in the Placements module
Release Date: 09/27/23

At the beginning of this year, we introduced Family Tags, enabling agencies to assign customized labels to caregivers. Since then, you have been using this feature to categorize families based on various criteria such as their location, participation in programs, specific characteristics, and more. We are thrilled to let you know that these tags are now accessible within the Placements module, and you can utilize them to on the Placements Options and View Matching Families pages.

Clickable Time to Approval Report
Release Date: 09/27/23

We have made an exciting improvement to our most popular report, Time to Approval. Now, every dot on the plot graph is interactive, allowing you to click on it. When you click on a dot, it will take you directly to the Applicant Data page for the respective caregiver. This enhancement is designed to streamline the process of uncovering applications with approval times that deviate from the usual or expected timeframe, making it quicker and more straightforward for you.

See which filters you have applied to the Caregiver Applications dashboard
Release Date: 10/05/23

We provide many robust filters on the Caregivers Applications dashboard that enable you to organize your data. Now, when you apply select filters, we will indicate the criteria you have chosen to filter by. This enhancement is aimed at making it simpler for you to understand precisely what you are viewing.

We are thrilled to announce that Binti is introducing an improved navigation experience. By reducing the number of menus, we have made the interface more intuitive and created room for upcoming new features. Furthermore, we have refined our terminology to provide clearer descriptions for each page. We now use people-centric language, such as "Caregivers" instead of "Applications."

The rollout of these improvements has already begun and is set to be completed at the beginning of October. Your agency will receive official communication from Binti specifying the exact date when the new navigation bar will become active.

Learn more and try an interactive demo in our Help Center