CARES SPOCs, Technical Contacts, Implementation Coordinators, OCM Coordinators, County Leadership, Tribe Leadership, Probation Leadership, and State Leadership:
Please note that the regular CWS-CARES Production Simulation (CARES100) maintenance window will be extended by 4 hours this weekend to conduct a Disaster Recovery (DR) exercise immediately following the planned outage.
Updated Outage Window:
- Start: Friday, September 18, 2026 at 5PM PST
- End: Saturday, September 19, 2026 at 12PM PST
Purpose of the Disaster Recovery Exercise
Immediately following the regular maintenance window, the CWS-CARES technical team will conduct a comprehensive DR exercise. This exercise validates overall DR capabilities — verifying that failover and recovery procedures work as intended, systems can be brought back online, and that recovery time can be met in the event of a major disruption such as a power outage, hardware failure, cyber incident, or natural disaster.
County Opportunities to Participate
This DR exercise is targeted. Participation is limited to a pre-selected group of county users who have already been contacted and coordinated with directly. No further action or testing involvement is required from other county teams during this window.
We acknowledge that this extension reduces system access, and we appreciate your support in coordinating around this time to minimize impacts on staff.
Thank you for your partnership as we complete this critical exercise to ensure long-term system stability and data protection for California's child welfare operations.
Please contact the Customer Relations mailbox for questions.
Action RequiredPlease share this communication with your staff that are impacted by this information.
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Security Protocols for Prod Sim Case Data
The Prod Sim environment contains converted CWS/CMS cases reflecting actual system data as of April 17, 2026. Because this includes real, sensitive Personally Identifiable Information (PII), all case information must be strictly protected or redacted.
To protect CWS-CARES case data, please follow these important security guidelines when working with our support teams:
- Redact Ticket Info: Do not send Protected Health Information (PHI), PII, or confidential case details to the Service Desk via email or ticket. Sensitive and confidential data cannot be stored in the ticketing system.
- Secure Screen Shares: During support-requested screen shares, limit attendees to essential personnel only. Recording of sensitive information is strictly prohibited.
- Consult for Tier 3 Transfers: If Tier 3 support needs sensitive data, use secure transmission methods. Contact your county Privacy Officer or the CWDS ISO if you need assistance with secure routing.
Please contact the Customer Relations mailbox for questions.