CWS-CARES Public Library

We are pleased to share that the JNET interface for CWS-CARES is now completed ahead of schedule!​

​JNET is used to track children, youth, and young adults involved in the juvenile justice system, whether as probation wards or child welfare dependents.​

The JNET interface is currently in use with CWS/CMS. The interface is being kept in place for CARES V1 at the request of San Bernardino County. The functionality in CARES V1 will be identical to the existing functionality in CWS/CMS. The interface will update the courts system with current assignments in CWS-CARES that applies to San Bernardino only.​

Originally published in the CWS-CARES Explorer.

There are three Milestones that focus on reporting:​

​Federal Reports ​

Federal Reports extends and consolidates metric development completed in previous milestones to generate required Federal Extracts (e.g., National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System (NCANDS), Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS), Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), National Youth in Transition Database (NYTD)) and deliver interactive dashboard views of Federal Statewide Indicators and other required Federal reports, including those required to draw down Family First Prevention Services Act (FFPSA) funds. CWS-CARES dashboards will support pulling multiple populations as appropriate, including entry cohorts, exit cohorts, attribute- defined cohorts and point-in-time snapshots. ​

​State Reports ​

State Reports) extends and consolidates metric development completed in previous milestones to deliver interactive thematic dashboard views of both State and Federal metrics. Thematic dashboards organize process, practice (fidelity) and outcome metrics by theme, such as Prevention, Safety and Permanency. ​

​Ad-hoc Reports ​

In addition to the planned reports that will be available when CARES V1 goes live (federal and state requirements, key outcomes, and practice measures), CARES will provide data consumers with the ability to develop their own reports using Tableau. They will have access to all appropriate CARES data in close to real time, translated into the categories and terminology that are meaningful to child welfare practitioners and researchers. This will include the kinds of historical needed to perform longitudinal studies. ​

Originally published in the CWS-CARES Explorer.

The role of the CWS-CARES Implementation Coordinator (IC) is very important to the successful implementation of CWS-CARES. An IC serves as the primary point of contact between their county, tribe, or organization and the project Implementation Team.

The IC works closely with a designated CWS-CARES Implementation Lead (IL) to conduct, manage, track, and report on a set of readiness activities. In addition, the IC supports their organization’s Implementation Team (which includes the Data Quality Analyst, OCM, Training, and Technical Coordinators) to understand and complete readiness activities that are being tracked on the Go-Live Readiness Checklist. The IC responsibilities include informing their leadership of the progress being made and to ensure implementation readiness activities are completed to prepare their organization and end users for CWS-CARES Go-Live. ​

Originally published in the CWS-CARES Explorer.

Case Management involves processes to identify, provide, monitor, and evaluate the services and decisions necessary to reduce the risk of harm to the child. Activities include everything from the opening of the case, whether court-monitored or voluntary, through the closure and some aftercare services. 

Milestones Related to Case Management

CWS-CARES is organized by milestones, which break down the product functionality into manageable units. Some of the milestones that closely relate to Case Management are detailed below.

Case Management: Engagement
Case Management - Engagement equips social workers to create, assign, and transfer a case from an investigation as well as from non-investigative entry points. This milestone also expands on the creation and updating of the Person Profile, delivering additional elements related to Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA), education, health, behavioral and mental health, and Regional Center data. The broader scope of information captured allows for a more robust Health and Education Passport (HEP).

Prevention Services
Prevention Services equips social workers to search a Service Provider Directory, based upon the identified needs/strengths of the child or family. The social worker will then match the child/family with services or providers.

Case Plan
Case Plan establishes Case Plan, the foundation and central unifying tool in child welfare services. The milestone equips the worker to partner with the child, family, and care team to develop, monitor, and provide services and case management to assure the child’s best interest is met through the provision of a safe environment.

Case Management: Engagement and Services
Case Management - Engagement and Services provides a range of capabilities to support and improve engagement with families in the context of an open case. Such capabilities include preparing for, conducting and documenting family visitations and convening the Child and Family Team (CFT). This milestone equips workers to clearly capture the assessment of a child’s visitation needs. It also captures visitor statistics to measure attendance, visitation quality, and new skills learned.

Placement
Placement delivers the functionality to equip workers to find a high-quality placement for a child in a timely manner. The worker can add any potential placement option to a shortlist for the child, allowing for the worker to view all placement options and their status (e.g., placement provider accepted the child) on a single screen.

Adoptions
Adoption improves monitoring of the adoption processes and activities, including document preparation and tracking for adoption finalization. Increases compliance with State rule for Termination of Parental Rights (TPR) and other adoption-related requirements. Increases visibility in the adoption process, including adoption stability, re-entry following adoption, and post-adoption services support.

Case Closure
Case Closure provides social workers with the ability to assess cases for closure, finalize and close a case, and support any other areas of practice related to the ending of a child welfare case. This ultimately equips the social worker with the best practices for family engagement in transition and aftercare planning, with the goal of helping families prepare for their exit from Child Welfare and reduce the likelihood they will need services in the future.

Aftercare & Re-entry
Aftercare & Re-entry equips the worker with a platform for intentional planning for aftercare services as a family, child, or youth approaches case closure. The structured format for capturing this planning process (i.e., CFT, case plan, family preservation, etc.) assures that those exiting child welfare case management services are doing so with services, people, and resources in place to provide ongoing support.

Originally published in the CWS-CARES Explorer.

The Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) is a federal law enacted in 1978 to protect the best interests of Native American children and promote the stability and security of Native American tribes and families. The ICWA establishes minimum Federal standards for the removal of Indian children, delineates the roles of State and Tribal governments in child welfare cases, establishes placement preferences for placement with family and Tribal members, and institutes protections for parents regarding the termination of parental rights. In California, ICWA provides guidance to counties, regarding the handling of child abuse and neglect and adoption cases involving Indian children and sets minimum standards for these cases, to support Indian children and families, and ensure children remain connected to their family, Tribe, and culture. ​

Among protections for Indian children, ICWA requires caseworkers to make several considerations when handling an ICWA case, including: ​

• Providing active efforts to the family; ​

• Identifying a placement that fits under the ICWA preferences provisions; ​

• Notifying the child’s tribe and the child’s parents of the child custody proceeding; and​

• Working actively to involve the child’ tribe and the child’s parents in the proceedings.​​

ICWA ensures that tribes as sovereign nations, have a strong voice in child custody proceedings involving Indian children. Tribes have exclusive jurisdiction over cases when the child resides on the reservation, or when the child is a ward of the tribe. Tribes have concurrent jurisdiction for an ICWA case, when the child is living or domiciled off the reservation, or the Tribal court declines to take the case. In California when the county and Tribe have concurrent jurisdiction, ICWA establishes a presumption that the county must transfer jurisdiction to the Tribe, upon request.​

Originally published in the CWS-CARES Explorer.

The California Department of Social Services (CDSS) is the project sponsor and participates in various areas of the CARES project.  Subject matter experts from Accounting, Fiscal, Legal and Program provide input and policy guidance on development activities.  ​

​The Child Welfare System Branch (CWSB) is responsible for representing the CDSS at Child Welfare Digital Services (CWDS).  The branch chief wears multiple hats including sitting on the CWDS Executive Leadership Team.  Five of the staff are Service Managers and work directly with the Product Delivery Team to develop functionality to support case management, external stakeholder coordination, financial management, resource family approval, resource management, reporting and metrics. Staff research child welfare regulation, statute, and county letter guidance to ensure CARES supports current child welfare policy and practice to comply with the Comprehensive Child Welfare Information System (CCWIS) requirements.  ​

The team works directly with multiple tribes to identify how CARES will support users in meeting the Indian Child Welfare Act requirements. Working directly with counties, the team identifies external or ancillary systems to ensure business operations will not be impacted when CARES goes live. The team also provides fiscal oversight to the CARES project and conducts biennial data quality reviews as required by CCWIS.  ​​

Originally published in the CWS-CARES Explorer.

Current State - Context

In the current CWS/CMS system, addresses are not validated when they are entered. This can cause problems if there are errors, or if the address does not exist. 

New CWS-CARES Feature 

​In CARES V1, users will enter the address, search, and then select the correct one from a validated list. The goal of validating addresses as they are entered is to eliminate errors and duplicates, and to ensure that addresses exist. Address data will come from a tool called Smarty Streets.​

Note: Product features and screens are subject to change; we may make adjustments based on feedback.​

Originally published in the CWS-CARES Explorer.

The Data Conversion Team has been working to convert data from CWS/CMS to CWS-CARES. To accurately capture the questions and needs of our counties, the Data Conversion Team has a process that they repeat every Data Conversion Cycle with new and existing groups for Practice and Data Validation (depending on service areas). ​​​​​

First, they schedule a kickoff meeting to provide a general overview of the data conversion process so that the counties know what to expect. ​​For Practice Validation, the workgroup meets regularly to discuss the source to target mapping (STTM) and transformation logic for the original field in the legacy system and the new field in CARES V1. For Data Validation, office hours are scheduled to answer questions and walk through issues reported by the county testers.​​

​​The Data Conversion team tracks and addresses issues brought up by the counties, and revises STTM and/or transformation logic as needed. When functionality questions come up, the team also creates clarification requests and follows up with the Product team. All the responses and updates to issues raised are accessible real-time via Microsoft Teams. ​​

We want to thank counties for their continued support in this critical process of validating data conversion!​​

Originally published in the CWS-CARES Explorer.

The CWS-CARES project team is partnering with Evident Change to build the Structured Decision Making (SDM) Interface. Today, workers complete the following assessments using Evident Change’s Web SDM:

• Hotline Assessments at Intake
• Both Safety and Risk Assessments (in home, substitute, and congregate care provider) during Investigations
• Reunification/Risk Reassessment in Case Management

At go-live, workers will have a seamless integration from CARES V1 to Evident Change using Single Sign On (SSO). To prevent duplicate entry, CARES will automatically pre-fill incident, person, and allegation information where possible and Evident Change will automatically populate assessment information and decisions in CARES. Interface development was recently completed by CWS-CARES and Evident Change, and the team is in the process of full End-to-End testing through August 2024. 

Originally published in the CWS-CARES Explorer.

The CWS-CARES project team has been working hard to enhance document generation and management in an effort called Content Management. ​

The three parts of Content Management for CARES V1 include: Document Generation (i.e., create documents) by Adobe Experience Manager (AEM), Document Management (i.e., access, collaborate and route documents) by DocuEdge, and eSignature by AdobeSign.​

The CARES V1 system will:​

• Generate documents using the specific templates tailored by State, County, Organization, and Tribe​

• Organize, access, collaborate and pass along documents and forms for review ​

• Easily route documents for eSignatures for both internal and external signers ​

• Contain security features to keep sensitive data safe ​

• Help create an accessible and inclusive online experience ​
   

Originally published in the CWS-CARES Explorer.