PFS Online

A trusted tool to prevent child abuse, now online.

The PFS Online

The Problem

"Protective Factors" are conditions or attributes in individuals, families and communities that mitigate or eliminate risk in families and communities - thereby increasing the health and well-being of children and families. Protective Factors help parents to find resources, supports, or coping strategies that allow them to parent effectively, even under stress.

Protective Factors cover things like:

  • Family functioning
  • Nurturing and attachment
  • Social supports

The Protective Factors Survey is a tried-and-true tool that measures those factors quickly and accurately. It’s used in at least 40 states, and in a few other countries.

But the PFS had a problem: it only existed as a PDF. Practitioners gave out the survey on paper, and were responsible for tallying and making sense of their data all by themselves. That's not easy!

Enter the PFS Online
Keeping up with the paper versions wasn't easy.

Enter the PFS Online.

Working with the FRIENDS National Center for Community-Based Child Abuse Prevention, we developed an online version of the PFS: you can administer the survey live online, and your data is saved all in one place. Here's why it's better:

Mobile First

First, the survey experience is now a mobile-first, responsive web experience. Everything is built to support any device; this is critical for the kind of fieldwork that PFS users do.

Team Oriented

Many users within the same Agency can all work together, and their records are all saved together. Your team can now be distributed, but all working with one set of data.

Handoff populations
Handoff Options.

But wait, there's more!

Handoff Options

The survey itself has two parts: an intro that's completed by the agency staff, and then the twenty questions that are answered by the participant. In the PFS Online, the agency staff has options about how this works. They fill out their portion, and then choose a handoff method:

  • They can pass their device to the participant
  • They can email a link
  • They can text a link
  • They can even show the use a QR code to scan from their phone

Pre-written Reports

The PFS Online generates reports that analyze your data according the FRIENDS' recommendations. These save time for everybody!

Own Your Own Data

This is important: the PFS Online is a centralized platform for giving out the survey and running your reports - but you get to own your own data. Each group is set up with a separate database which they own and control. Anybody can set up their own account, or we can help you with it directly.