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.

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 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.