The Health and Human Services’ Administration of Children and Families recognized that human services would benefit from having better coordinated and integrated services, and achieving that vision would mean programs could collaborate system-wide to share case management data, examine effects across programs, streamline data reporting, and collaborate with related fields including health, education, and justice. To further these goals, an Interoperability Initiative was created that aims to provide impactful guidance, resources and tools to support data sharing implementers and interoperability projects in the field. A key component of the Interoperability Initiative is the adoption of the National Information Exchange Model (NIEM).

The IJIS Institute is leading a technical assistance team to support the Interoperability Initiative and interoperability goals of the Administration of Children and Families with protocols, processes and standards.