OBJECTIVES: In the Isaacus service operator pre-production project "Well-being information on children and young people", a data lake was developed and tested. Once finalized, Isaacus service operator seeks to provide nationally-representative Finnish data on a one stop shop basis. During the pre-production, predictors for child 1) placement decisions and 2) placement costs were analysed.

METHODS: Data included social and health care data of clients (aged 0-17 years) and their guardians who had used Kuopio (9^th biggest Finnish city, 117 thousand inhabitants) family social services during 1^st January 2013 – 31^st August 2017. Clients with at least one request for inquiry for the social or child protective services were included (first inquiry = index event). Factors influencing child placement decisions were assessed using multivariate logistic regression models (LRM). Placement days were calculated and valued with national unit cost. Significant cost drivers for the placements were identified using generalized linear modelling (GLM).

RESULTS: Clients (N=5554): 52.7% male, on average 8.7 years old, and 4.2% with earlier placement at the time of index event. Robust, significant influencers for placement decisions in the LRMs included inquiry reasons (child-parent disagreements, domestic violence/threat) and inquiry initiators (emergency centre, client, social worker, family caretaker). Average placement cost was 50 573 euros per placed child for the max 4.67 years follow-up. Based on the GLM, significantly higher costs were observed with earlier placement, guardian's nervous system medication use, certain reasons for inquiries (other reason, juvenile delinquency, child substance abuse/suspect, child mental wellbeing, suspected child abuse, child-parent disagreements). Significantly lower costs were associated with no significant cost driver present, child's peer relations as a reason for inquiry, new client, and two-parent family.

CONCLUSIONS: Client characteristics and social context impacted the child placement decisions and their costs. The service operator "Isaacus" is an expected development for real-world data use in Finland.