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

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.

A: The service areas for CWS-CARES include Intake, Case Management, Resource Management, Financial Management, Eligibility, Courts, Data Management, CARES Administration, External Stakeholder Coordination, and Certification Approval and Licensing (CALS). You can find high-level descriptions of each service area located on our CWDS.ca.gov website: CWS-CARES Service Areas.

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:  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: Core Constituents are County, State, or Indian Tribal representatives who collaborate with Child Welfare Digital Services (CWDS) in research, design, testing, and support of activities for the implementation or improvement of a Digital Service. This, and other definitions, can be found in the Child Welfare Digital Services Project Glossary.

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