Problem
United Way of Greater Houston’s Integrated Client Journey helps individuals and families move from crisis to stability and stay there. The work focuses on neighbors living as ALICE or below across Fort Bend, Harris, Montgomery, and Waller counties, where many households are working but still struggling to cover essentials like housing, food, child care, healthcare, and transportation.
Because ICJ connects people to funded partners across multiple service areas, United Way needed more than a simple referral tool. The initiative required a technology backbone that could support navigator-led services, client self-service, resource connections, data insights, and long-term goal tracking across a coordinated partner network.
Solution
Healthconnect Texas has supported ICJ as a connected care and community data initiative, not just a standalone portal.
For navigator-led support, our team helped build the secure infrastructure and provider portal that allows navigators and partner organizations to document goals, coordinate referrals, track progress, and support clients over time.
For self-service access, we launched a client-facing portal that gives community members another way to begin their journey online. Through ICJ Self-Service, people can set goals, choose from 14 data-driven need categories, view manageable next steps, find relevant resources and referrals, save progress, and return later when life gets busy.
Behind the scenes, the self-service experience connects with the broader navigation platform so client activity can support coordinated follow-up, stronger referral workflows, and better data for understanding community needs.
Why it Matters
ICJ shows how the/path can support both human-led navigation and client-directed access within one connected system. Community members can engage in the way that fits their life, whether that means working directly with a navigator or taking a first step on their own time.
For United Way and its partners, the platform supports more than service delivery. It helps connect goals, referrals, resource needs, and data insights across the broader ICJ strategy, giving leaders a clearer view of what families need, which supports are being used, and where additional pathways to stability may be needed.
This case demonstrates the full value of the/path: navigator-led coordination through path/bridge, resource connection through path/net, population and program insight through path/discovery, and client-facing access through a secure self-service portal.
