County leadership, CARES SPOCs, CARES Implementation Coordinators, and Forms Workgroup Members:
Hello County Partners,
As we transition from CWS/CMS to CWS-CARES, we are providing an update on how court reports are being developed. Our goal is to maintain the flexibility you currently have while streamlining the court report template development process.
While court reports in CWS-CARES will maintain a structure similar to CWS/CMS, the process is changing. CWS-CARES introduces greater flexibility for court reporting by shifting the power to the counties, enabling them to build their own layouts and make modifications—a significant upgrade from the static build process in CWS/CMS.
CWS- CARES will provide templates that can be leveraged as a starting point and counties will have full autonomy to design, build, and modify their county specific court reports at any time, with reduced reliance on the State team. The Project Team is developing three base template variations for each court report type, which differ only in their sections and how the content is organized. Base templates will be provided for the following:
- Detention, Jurisdiction, Disposition, and Jurisdiction/Disposition Reports
- Status Review Court and Interim Review Reports
- 366.26 WIC and 241.1 WIC Reports
- Order After Hearing, Declaration of Due Diligence, Ex Parte Application and Order Reports
- 15- Day Review Report, Status Review NMD, Status Review Pre NMD
- Addendum, Generic, and Acceptance of Transfer Reports
We recognize that local court requirements vary. If the county approves one of the three provided base templates without modifications, no further action is required; the project team will handle all configuration setups. Alternatively, counties may modify the templates’ language and formatting to suit their specific court needs, maintaining the same flexibility available in the current system.
Next Steps & Support
We will help counties prepare for using the CWS-CARES base court report templates to design and build their customized reports by providing detailed guides and "how-to" demonstration sessions on the template modification process and tools starting in February 2026 during the CWS-CARES Forms Workgroup meetings. County forms authors should plan to attend these important sessions, and the sessions will be recorded as well for those who are unable to attend.
If you have questions regarding the development process, timelines, or technical specifications, please contact the CWS-CARES Forms Workgroup mailbox at otsicwdscaresforms@otsi.ca.gov
For more general information on this area, refer to State and County Forms in CWS-CARES | Child Welfare Digital Services.