A: CWS-CARES is designed to improve compliance with state and federal policy (CCWIS) and support the improvement of child welfare programs. For example, a worker will now have information currently stored in contact notes or case plans auto-populate in court reports, and CWS-CARES will help child welfare workers stay on pace with their work and make sense of how their children and families are doing. CWS-CARES will have capabilities for identifying missing information and discrepancies for federal reporting and the system is designed to help end-users and clients by automating processes and tasks, streamlining workflows, and providing a more robust and effective engagement platform with clients and stakeholders. For example, CWS-CARES will populate information into forms and reports to save valuable time.

A: Child Welfare Services-California Automated Response and Engagement System (CWS-CARES) is the new system under development for the State of California to comply with Comprehensive Child Welfare Information System (CCWIS) requirements. CWS-CARES will be a modern, web-based computing infrastructure that is flexible, scalable, and based on industry enterprise architecture framework concepts. CWS-CARES will consolidate functionalities that are in various systems into a single system and include multiple interfaces with other applications, thus providing users with critical case information more efficiently.

A: The Child Welfare Services-California Automated Response and Engagement System (CWS-CARES) project has been planning for more regular communications starting in Spring 2024. In addition to this, the CWS-CARES Project will be issuing a quarterly newsletter starting in March 2024, and more activities including a Stakeholder Briefing with system demonstrations are planned to begin later this year.

A: Yes. A CWS-CARES Project Glossary can be found on the Child Welfare Digital Services Glossary webpage located in the CWDS Glossary.

A: The model and budget were approved by the Federal Administration for Children Youth and Families and the Child Welfare Digital Services Board of Directors which is composed of representatives from the County Welfare Directors Association, the California Department of Social Services, the State Department of Finance, Health and Human Services Agency, the California Department of Technology, and the State Office of Technology and Systems Integration.

During the initial planning phases of the CWS-CARES project (then referred to as CWS-NS), the Child Welfare functionality was divided into modules referred to as Digital Services: Intake, Case Management, Courts, Eligibility, Certification and Licensing, Financial Management, Resource Management, and Administration. The County Welfare Directors Association worked with the State and Federal partners to secure a project budget for Counties participation in the development and implementation of the new system.

Core Counties were solicited to participate in the development of each module. To balance the need for diverse county input with the size of the working team, the number of Counties for each digital service was targeted to be 6, depending on the module and the counties’ willingness to participate. Case Management, due to its size, was broken into 4 areas with 6 counties in each, designated CM 1-4. The CWDA Executive Liaison was in communication with each County Human Services Director and Child Welfare Director and obtained and confirmed each County’s participation; later the subsequent Executive Liaison re-confirmed each County’s participation prior to the “kickoff” of system development and then a third acting Executive Liaison reconfirmed participation, realigned a Resource Management County, and added 2 additional Financial Management counties based on resources and requirements at that time.

Core County Constituents are county employees who remain in their existing county roles and are authorized by their counties to provide subject matter expertise on a part-time basis to inform the design of CWS-CARES. The county submits claims to the project based on the Core Constituents hours worked on the project. Please see the Core Constituent Participation Model for a visual aid. 

A: CWS-CARES will provide training for the CWS-CARES system using a hybrid training approach. The CWS-CARES V1 hybrid training approach supports the delivery of training to all 121 Implementation Organizations (Orgs). In alignment with the County Welfare Directors Association (CWDA), Tribal Consultation, and the CARES project, this hybrid approach facilitates a partnership across the Regional Training Academies, Juvenile Probation, Organizations, and the CARES project training team to deliver training statewide. CalSAWS will provide training for the changes in CalSAWS for external users.

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 system can send automated and user-generated tasks to any person with access credentials. Users can dictate different levels of priority, due dates, and when and if to send reminders.

A: Yes, the Core County structure will remain. Core constituents have been identified from Core Counties and are actively involved in collaboration activities with Child Welfare Services-California Automated Response and Engagement System. The current Core Constituents can be found on the CWDS.ca.gov website: CWS-CARES Core Constituent List.

A: The project is utilizing a modified agile approach. This means the project is developing the functionality in Child Welfare Services-California Automated Response and Engagement System (CWS-CARES), incrementally.