Frequently Asked Questions
Stakeholder Briefing
Q: Will the project develop self-help tools for external portal users? Will the project communicate to external portal users that there will be a new portal?
A: The Project is considering approaches to assist portal users along with communications to broadly share the availability of such functionality statewide. No formal decisions have been made on these issues, more information to come in future communications.
Q: Will interested unmatched applicants be first directed to the interest form before having access to the application link?
A: This will be a practice issue on how counties want to funnel applicants through the process of creating an inquiry/application. CWS-CARES is built flexibly to allow for flexible entry points to start an inquiry or application.
Q: What is the plan for completing data bindings for converted forms?
A: Additional information around forms and data binding will be shared at the forms workgroup meeting on Thursday, June 4, 2026. In summary, the vendor team who is working on the conversion effort for forms will ensure that data bindings will be included in this effort.
Q: Will Resource Family Approval (RFA) only have access to RFA as files are all highly confidential and how will live scans be completed?
A: Role-based access will ensure that only Resource Family Approval (RFA) staff and their supervisors with appropriate permissions sets, which could include selected support staff, will have access to all information about applicants and application data. CWS-CARES will allow for the documentation of live scan results.
Q: With multiple family members in one household, how will each person complete Live Scan requirements and access the portal if they are connected to a single main applicant?
A: There will be a single user in the portal for a household. If there are issues that need to be addressed with members of the household that are not the portal user, those will be handled directly with that household member.
Q: For Foster Care Public Health Nurses (PHNs), will the Special Project Codes be available in CWS-CWS-CARES to pull data for performance measures?
A: Special Project Codes will be converted from CWS-CMS and admins will have the ability to create new special project codes that their county might need.
Q: Will Tableau only be available to pull for our County by specific staff who have access to Tableau?
A: This is still being developed. Users will get access to reports based on permissions as Tableau report viewers. How report developers will get access to Tableau is being reviewed.
Q: Will counties that developed some forms be reimbursed for the work that they did to develop those forms?
A: Any forms that have been previously developed may claim CCP funding as development activity.
Q: What is the Opeeka Interface?
A: The Opeeka Interface will have the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths Assessment (CANS) assessment highlighted as well as multiple other assessments available (separate from Structured Decision Making (SDM) which have the more change based assessments). This will mirror how the CANS assessment is currently done, pulling it into CWS-CARES using the Opeeka Interface (referring to the system look and feel).
Q: Will Person Merge functionality be available in CWS-CARES to address duplicate client or person records?
A: Yes, Person Merge functionality will be available in CWS-CARES.