This article is part of the 2025 Report: GovCX Trailblazers Case Studies, published by the International Foundation for Customer Experience in Government. The report aims to advance the global dialogue on Customer Experience (CX) in the public sector by highlighting innovative practices from around the world and setting benchmarks to help governments strengthen their CX initiatives.

Valerie Kelly, Director of Innovation and Transformation, Department of Social Development, Government of New Brunswick, Canada where she leads efforts to make public services simpler, more responsive, and more human. Her work focuses on shifting government from rigid, process-driven models toward more empathetic, person-centered approaches, while advancing Total Experience as the next step in how public services are designed and delivered.

Serving New Brunswick’s most vulnerable citizens demands more than policy, it requires empathy, coordination, and a commitment to modernizing how services are delivered. For Valerie Kelly, this meant leading a digital transformation of the Department of Social Development, reimagining case and care management to simplify access, accelerate service delivery, and strengthen outcomes for individuals and families.

Her goal was clear: to move beyond siloed, paper-based processes and toward an integrated, human-centered digital model, one that brings together clients, staff, and community partners in new ways to improve care across the province.

The journey, however, was not without its challenges. Valerie and her team had to overcome entrenched legacy systems and siloed workflows that complicated data sharing and coordination. “One significant challenge was navigating the complexity of existing legacy systems,” she shared, noting that integration wasn’t just a technical problem, it was a cultural and operational one too.

Digital literacy gaps among staff and partners also surfaced, requiring ongoing training and support. At the same time, balancing rapid innovation with compliance obligations meant designing tools that were agile but still secure, private, and aligned with policy.

The biggest challenge was not technology, it was mindset.

Over two years, Valerie’s team introduced a series of strategic digital tools that collectively transformed service delivery:

• Online applications simplified access to Long Term Care, Disability Supports, and Housing Benefits.
• Community partner portals for fostering and adoption expanded placement options for children in care.
• Digitized service order processes cut down turnaround times and reduced friction for clients.
• Digital dashboards gave staff real-time insights to intervene early when children weren’t achieving educational milestones.
• A digital incident reporting system allowed for proactive trend analysis and intervention, helping people stay safely in their homes.
• Modernized inspection processes, with secure online tracking of infractions and corrective actions, elevated care quality in nursing homes.

Each solution was first piloted with a small group of users, and upon demonstrating value, scaled province-wide, following an agile, iterative approach that emphasized continuous feedback and adaptation.

Valerie credits the success of the transformation to three key enablers:

1. Deep co-design: Frontline staff, clients, and partners were engaged throughout the process to ensure solutions met real needs.
2. Agile implementation: Starting small, refining fast, and scaling what worked proved more effective than top-down rollouts.
3. Strong leadership commitment: Senior support helped drive adoption, ensure continuity, and maintain momentum.

This collaborative approach helped the department navigate technical complexity and organizational change, with a clear focus on the human impact behind every improvement.

The work isn’t finished. Valerie emphasizes that this is a long-term transformation journey, one grounded in a shared mission to serve people better. Her team is now looking at how these tools can evolve, scale further, and reach additional populations with complex care needs.

When viewed through the lens of the International Model for GOVCX, Valerie’s initiative shows significant progress in all four dimensions:

• Direction: A clear vision of modernized, equitable service delivery
• Design: Solutions rooted in frontline insight and iterative co-creation
• Development: Agile scaling, piloting, and robust digital enablement
• Delivery: Real-world outcomes that are improving lives across the province

As Valerie puts it, “Ultimately, success in GovCX depends not just on technology, but on empathy, communication, and persistence.”