Family Connections is a powerful visual family tree building tool published by Connect Our Kids. Social workers, CASA volunteers, and family recruiters use Family Connections to discover and engage the extended families and supporters of children in foster care.
Family Connections helps you quickly discover contact information and capture web pages and other supporting documentation for people. This article explains the features in Family Connections that enable discovering people.
Automatic People Search
When you create a new person in a Family Connections and enter just one or two known details about that person, Family Connections automatically performs a search using another tool called People Search. This search happens in the background each time you edit a person.
You will know that the automatic search has found a match when the People Search icon (dark blue circle - see below) appears over the bottom right of a person in the tree.
Click the dark blue circle icon to view the People Search results.
Manual People Search
Click on a case
Click on a person in the case
Click the 'Search' tab
Click the 'People Search' icon in the upper left, under "Free"
Choose a person in the results, or click cancel
Import from People Search
The People Search window offers you the option to automatically import some or all data from the search results. These include the person's picture, residences, telephone number, emails, and social media profiles.
Check checkboxes next to data to be imported
Existing items can not be unchecked
Use the 'Select All' options to select many at once
Click the 'Import' button to import the data into the persons profile
Searching Using Other Services
Family Connections offers the option to quickly jump into searches for many other search services. Some of these 3rd party services are free, and others require a subscription or contract for service.
The list of services available is constantly changing. See the Family Connections web tool for more information on the currently available integration
One Click Searches in 3rd Party Websites
Open a case
Click on a person in the case
Click the 'Search' tab
Click on a service
For some services, click the type of search you'd like to perform
Importing Data From 3rd Party Websites
To import or save documents from 3rd party websites, use our Chrome Browser Plugin.
Customizing the 3rd Party Search List
If you have a favorite website that you use for searching, or if you have a state or local government system you'd like to add, send an email to [email protected] with the following details.
The name of the service to include
Whether it's publicly available, or only for your team's use
An example URL of a search from the tool (perform a search in the target website, and then copy and paste the address from your web browser into the email that you send)
For more information or help, send an email to [email protected]