A: The project has made final revisions to our timeline, reviewed, and approved by the state Department of Technology and Child Welfare Services-California Automated Response and Engagement System (CWS-CARES) Board of Directors. Please see CARES Project Roadmap Approval presentation for more information. You can also view the more detailed Roadmap online: CWDS Roadmap

A: The project has the collected research from previous efforts provided by the Organizations and will continue to leverage/refer to it as needed.

A: CWS-CARES will interface with a number of partners to ensure that CWS-CARES has timely and pertinent data for the CWS-CARES child welfare and is able to present a holistic view of an individual or a case. Currently, for the release of CWS-CARES Version 1 (V1), the CWS-CARES team will be interfacing with:

• California Department of Social Services (CDSS) – Licensing Information System (LIS) will provide information on licensed placement providers for workers within CWS-CARES. This is something that currently takes place within CWS/CMS and CARES-Live.
• California Department of Social Services – Facility Automation System (FAS) will provide children’s residential facilities information for workers within CWS-CARES.
• California Department of Social Services - County Expense Claim Reporting and Information System (CECRIS) will allow workers to complete the necessary expense claims within CWS-CARES including the ability to produce CB-496 and CFS 101 with both IV-E and IV-B expenditures and caseloads.
• California Department of Developmental Services (DDS) will provide Regional Center placement options into the CWS-CARES provider directory. This will allow workers to easily access critical regional center information without having to leave CWS-CARES.
• California Department of Education (CDE) will provide updated school (resource) data elements within CWS-CARES, similar to what is currently in CWS/CMS. This information will not include child specific school or grade level information.
• California Statewide Automated Welfare System (CalSAWS) – Foster Care Eligibility Determination (FCED) is an interface between CWS-CARES and CalSAWS/FCED that will eliminate the need for manual data entry from one system to another and automate the eligibility determination process in a cost effective and efficient manner.

A: Yes. Data to satisfy AFCARS data element requirements will be built and tested at every milestone throughout the project development. AFCARS data is used to develop the federal California-Child and Family Services Review (CFSR) outcome measures, which are monitored over time.

A: The purpose of the Data Conversion Workgroup is to validate the data mapping and not the CARES application. It is best to have people that understand the underlying data and fields, who can best validate that the intended data is properly related to the appropriate object model in CARES. This is best suited for people who have some type of experience with data models, xTools, databases, or Entity-Relationship-Diagrams.

A: Yes, data extracts will be available. The project is currently working on designing and implementing secure mechanisms to provide data extracts to organizations. Details will be provided via CWS-CARES Analytics Transition Workgroup in the coming weeks.

A: CWS-CARES is being designed through guidance from the Comprehensive Child Welfare Information System (CCWIS) requirements as set by the Administration on Children Youth and Families (ACYF). These regulatory requirements will ensure that data collected will be:

• Complete, Timely, and Accurate
• Consistently & Uniformly Collected
• Exchanged & Maintained Confidentially
• Implemented & Maintained through Automated Functions
• Supportive of Child Welfare Policies, Goals & Practices

• Data will be validated at collection (I.e., data entry)
• Data in CWS-CARES will be continually measured through data profiling and data quality assessments. CWS-CARES data stewards will work closely with the data governance and data quality teams in determining the criticality of any data violations and the effectiveness of the remediations.
• Using automated data exchanges in a standardized format with various external sources to provide supporting data, in turn, reducing manual entry with the goal of preventing data inconsistencies and inaccuracy.
• Improved data analysis tools that can assist in trends, projections, and identifying gaps in providing child welfare services.
• Providing master data management (MDM) to provide a single source of truth throughout CWS-CARES thereby avoiding duplicates, redundancy, and inaccuracy.

A:  It is recommended the participating Organization’s Subject Matter Experts (SME’s):

• Understand data in the legacy system Child Welfare Services/Case Management System (CWS/CMS)
• Understand how the data is inter-related in CWS/CMS
• Understand data transformation rules.
• Understand data quality concepts.
• Are familiar with database and related concepts, i.e., entities, attributes, data types, relationships, mandatory fields, and list of values (LOVs)
• Are familiar with the current CWS/CMS business model (i.e., Referrals, Allegations, Delivered Services, Cases)
• Have knowledge of County policies and/or County desk procedures that direct specific data entry for a program or interim solution that may have used data fields for data other than their original intent. Sometimes counties have very specific data they want to capture.
• Have knowledge of County business practices (possibly by program) that will help identify the intentional or unintentional use of a field. For example:
  • Storing the Corporate Identification Number (CIN) number in a different data field (before the CIN number was added to CWS/CMS)
  • Storing a CalWORKs number in a data field intended for something else.
  • Storing American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and/or Kinship Guardianship Assistance (Kin-GAP) program information in CWS/CMS data fields designated for other programs/placements
  • Are familiar with any County unique dropdowns/screens/fields.
  • Understand use or misuse of a field to record data that was not the original intent of the data element.

A: Data Stewards include staff from the County Welfare Directors Association of California (CWDA), County Child Welfare Departments, County Juvenile Probation Departments, Title IV-E Tribes, and California Department of Social Services (CDSS). CARES Data Stewards will be responsible for reviewing artifacts provided by the Conversion team and working with the CWDS Data Team on Data Quality management and cleanup. Data Stewards will participate in and be responsible for:

• Data Quality
• Data Clean-up
• Data Practice Validation activities
• Ongoing Data Stewardship during Conversion and post CWS-CARES Go-Live.

A: Yes, there are certain activities that counties should practice when validating converted data. As guidance, counties should practice the following:

• Identify knowledgeable staff
• Validate accuracy and completeness
• Run county-specific test scenarios
• Provide structured feedback