A: SafeMeasure and SDM should not be treated as an External System. They will not require the same level of effort or planning as external systems, particularly for tasks like data conversion, ongoing operations, or decommissioning.

A: Counties will have a couple of ways to pull data from CWS-CARES. They will be able to create queries and reports using the CWS-CARES reporting tool, Tableau. A county can also ask the CWS-CARES Project Team to be part of the “Data Extracts” workgroup. However, counties should note that the current project efforts in this area are focused on the counties that currently get extracts from CWS/CMS. Therefore, we may not be able to include a county that’s not already a part of this group in time for V1.

A: Short answer: There is a requirement for CANS to be entered into CARES-Live. Only CANS entered CARES-Live will be converted to CWS-CARES. CANS entered in other systems will not be converted to CWS-CARES. With the policy requirement that county CANS data be entered into CARES-Live since July 1, 2021, the CWS-CARES project has not planned for additional bulk upload of CANS data from other external systems into CWS-CARES. See below for more detailed information.

A: Detailed Answer: ACL-21-27 requires that effective on or before July 1, 2021, county Child Welfare Departments statewide enter all new CANS data into CARES-Live for all children with an open child welfare case regardless of which agency completed the CANS. When CWS-CARES Version 1 (V1) goes live in October 2026 all data in CARES-Live will we be transferred into CWS-CARES and CARES-Live will be decommissioned. With the policy requirement that county CANS data be entered into CARES-Live since July 1, 2021, the CWS-CARES project has not planned for additional bulk upload of CANS data from other external systems into CWS-CARES. In preparation for data conversion into CWS-CARES we strongly recommend counties not currently in compliance with state policy to use CARES-Live create a plan to transition their business process to start entering CANS data into CARES-Live as soon as possible. The plan should also include an approach for entering all CANS data created since the policy went into effect into CARES-Live prior to October 2026 so that data will be available in CWS-CARES. Further, if external systems exist that have duplicate functions to CARES-Live they conflict with the Comprehensive Child Welfare Information System (CCWIS) federal regulations and state policy (ACL 18-47) that counties should not develop or maintain external systems that duplicate functionality contained in the state’s CCWIS application. Counties are required to decommission any ancillary system functionality that duplicates the statewide child welfare case management system.

A: The CWS-CARES project team does not currently have a recommendation. The project will be researching this functionality for consideration in CWS-CARES future scope after CWS-CARES V1 is implemented. The design and timing of this enhancement is currently unknown.

A: Upon the release of CWS-CARES V1, there will be a data exchange with the California Department of Developmental Services (DDS) that will add Regional Center data into the system. This Regional Center Listing will include names, address(s), and phone numbers. This information will be gathered from the DDS website and will be updated any time a new location or changes are made to the webpage. At the release of CWS-CARES V1, a more robust interface and data exchange with DDS is not feasible and the project will be looking towards building something more comprehensive in later iterations of CWS-CARES.

A: Counties should continue to enter CWS/CMS Case Number in CalSAWS. This is required for data conversion to establish a link between CWS/CMS and CalSAWS Cases.

A: CWS-CARES will provide a similar mechanism for counties to continue to receive daily data downloads as they do today from CWS/CMS. CWS-CARES data is replicated from the production Salesforce system to Snowflake that is the data source for extracts and reporting. CWS-CARES will provide organizations with additional detail on the CWS-CARES’ data extract capabilities.

A: Data will be available for upload and download. The specific technical capabilities for upload and download, such as SFTP, are under review and will be shared with counties soon. Child Welfare Services-California Automated Response Engagement System (CWS-CARES) users will have the ability to upload and download documents and associate them to CWS-CARES entities such as Case or Person.

A: Currently, there is no plan to incorporate online mandated reporting as a feature of CWS-CARES V1.

A: Electronic submissions of Suspected Child Abuse Reports (SCARs) is currently out of scope for CWS-CARES V1.