CWDS Bulletins

All SPOCs and Technical Contacts:

The CARES-Live team has scheduled maintenance for the CARES-Live application. The maintenance is scheduled for Thursday, February 26, 2026, from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM. During this scheduled maintenance the CARES-Live team will focus on application maintenance changes that are not visible to CARES-Live users.

NOTE: Users will not be able to access the CARES-Live application during the scheduled outage.

Action Required

If users experience any issues with CARES-Live, please follow your county process for reporting issues. CARES-Live County Administrators may contact the CARES Service Desk through the CWDS ServiceNow Customer Support Management (CSM) Portal. Alternate methods are phoning 1-855-292-3444 or via email at Servicedesk@cwds.ca.gov during normal business hours. You may also email after hours and a Service Desk representative will contact you the next business day.

CARES SPOCs, Implementation Coordinators, OCM Coordinators, County Leadership, Tribe Leadership, Probation Leadership, and State Leadership:

In this Weekly Digest (click the link for more information):

• Register for Stakeholder Briefing #6: Now Scheduled for March 25, 2026, from 10:00 AM – 12:00 Noon
• CARES Explorer Volume 3, Issue 1 Now Available
• Coming March 30, 2026: The CWS-CARES Pop-Up Shop #2
• Introducing CWS-CARES Video #5 – CWS-CARES 101: Placement & Eligibility
• CWS-CARES Core Constituent Demonstrations
• CWS-CARES Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) of the Week

Register for Stakeholder Briefing #6: Now Scheduled for March 25, 2026, from 10:00 AM – 12:00 Noon

You are invited to register the next CWS-CARES Stakeholder Briefing, now scheduled for March 25, 2026, from 10:00 AM – 12:00 Noon! Register here to reserve your spot: Stakeholder Briefing #6 - March 25, 2026 | Registration.

Please note: a calendar invitation for Stakeholder Briefing #6 will not be sent from the CWS-CARES Project. You must manually add the .ics file included in the registration confirmation email to your calendar. 

If you require any accommodations to attend this meeting, such as an ASL interpreter, please notify CWDS Customer Relations at: CWS_CustRel@otsi.ca.gov at least one week in advance, or as soon as possible.

Please share the registration link and instructions in this email to any staff that might be interested in attending the session.

Thank you for your continued participation and engagement at the CWS-CARES Stakeholder Briefings. We are excited to announce that in May 2026, Stakeholder Briefing webinars will be held monthly through CWS-CARES Go-Live, with additional time for stakeholder Q&A. View the dates for upcoming Stakeholder briefings, along with the recordings and materials from previous sessions, on the CWS-CARES Stakeholder Briefings and Webinars page on the CWDS website.

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CARES Explorer Volume 3, Issue 1 Now Available

We are pleased to present the February 2026 issue of the CARES Explorer, the long‑form newsletter published every other month! For the best experience, please open the link using the Microsoft Edge browser. This issue includes the following topics:

Project Updates:

• Upcoming Activities at CWS-CARES
• CWS-CARES Readiness Update
• Stakeholder Briefing Registration and Update

Explore CWS-CARES:

• Extended User Scenario Testing (EUST) 3
• Forms and Reports: Preparing for Go-Live and Beyond

Implementation Corner:

• Spotlight: County Participation in Binti Preliminary Data Mapping Validation Workshops
• 9-Month Readiness Checkpoints
• CWS-CARES Pop-Up Shop #2

We recommend that you share this newsletter at your discretion with staff that are impacted by the changes coming with CWS-CARES. You may also obtain all previous CARES Explorer issues on the CWDS website: CARES Compass/Explorer | Child Welfare Digital Services.

If you would like to receive future issues of the CARES Explorer newsletter, please subscribe to the CWS-CARES Weekly Digest. Those who have previously subscribed to the CARES Explorer or CARES Compass will automatically begin receiving Weekly Digest emails each Monday, which will include an Explorer issue every quarter.

If you have questions, need clarification, or have any accessibility issues, please do not hesitate to contact Customer Relations.

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Coming March 30, 2026: The CWS-CARES Pop-Up Shop #2

The CWS-CARES Pop-Up Shop is returning with a brand-new selection of items! All 58 California counties, Tribes, State partners, and public agencies will be able to purchase CWS-CARES branded merchandise online at the CWS-CARES Pop-Up Shop #2 between Monday, March 30 and Friday, April 17. 

During this limited-time window, stakeholders will have the opportunity to purchase CWS-CARES–branded items using their own funds. The shop will feature a variety of new items, including apparel, stationery, mugs, accessories, and more. Additional details, ordering information, and a preview of the items offered will be shared in the CWS-CARES Weekly Digest, ahead of the Pop-Up Shop grand opening on March 30.

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Introducing CWS-CARES Video #5 – CWS-CARES 101: Placement & Eligibility

The CWS-CARES Implementation Team has released the latest video in the CWS-CARES Video Series: CWS-CARES 101 - Placement & Eligibility.

This brief, animated video shows a glimpse into a day in the life of a Case Worker and Eligibility Resource, highlighting new features in CWS-CARES. We encourage you to share this video with your teams, screen it during upcoming meetings, and use it as a tool to help jump-start conversations about CWS-CARES.

Visit the CWS-CARES Public Library to watch and share previous CARES videos: CWS-CARES Video Series.

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CWS-CARES Core Constituent Demonstrations

Here’s a quick look at the CWS-CARES Core Constituent Demonstrations from the previous and upcoming two weeks. These demonstrations give counties and partners a chance to see key features in action, learn what’s new or coming soon, and share feedback that helps shape ongoing improvements to CWS-CARES.

View all the previous Product Demonstrations on the CWDS website: CWS-CARES Product Demonstrations. Please note, a log in is required to view all recordings.

CWS-CARES Core Constituent Demonstrations Held February 16 - 20, 2026:

• February 17, 2026, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM

Resource Family Approval (RFA): RFA Application Portal Self-Registration, RFA Portal Application Creation, Withdrawal of an Application by an RFA Applicant

Upcoming CWS-CARES Core Constituent Demonstrations Scheduled February 23 – 27, 2026: *

• February 23, 2026, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM

Financial Management: Portal Login, Management, Prevention Services, and more

*Please note that dates for CWS-CARES Demonstrations shared here are subject to change. Please check the CWDS Meeting and Event Calendar for the most up-to-date schedule.

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CWS-CARES Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) of the Week

Q: Regarding Optimistic Concurrency, will there be a warning message when 2 people are editing the same record (For example, the same contact note, same warrant, etc.)?

A: In CWS-CARES, updates are written directly to the cloud. If two users attempt to edit the same record at the same time (e.g., the same contact log or case record), the second user will receive an error indicating that the record has been updated. They will then need to refresh the page, re-enter their changes, and save.

To be clear, records are not locked during editing since Salesforce handles Optimistic Concurrency through conflict detection instead.

Have a question? Send it to Customer Relations at CWS_CustRel@otsi.ca.gov and we’ll be happy to help. To view all of the CWS-CARES FAQs, please visit the CWDS Website: CWS-CARES FAQs | CWDS Website.

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Share Your Feedback and Subscribe 

Thank you for following our progress! Share your feedback on this CWS-CARES Weekly Digest here: CWS-CARES Weekly Digest Feedback Form. Subscribe to future issues here: CWS-CARES Weekly Digest Subscription Form.

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Action Required

We request that all CWS-CARES Single Point of Contacts (SPOCs) and Implementation Coordinators coordinate and distribute the CWS-CARES Weekly Digest to all staff impacted by CWS-CARES, at their discretion.

All Pilot County RFA Implementation Coordinators and SPOCs:

The CWS-CARES team has scheduled maintenance activity for the CWS-CARES production environment for Thursday, February 26, 2026, beginning at 5:00 PM and concluding at 8:00 PM. During the maintenance window, the CWS-CARES Resource Family Approval (RFA) Application Submission, Review, and Approval Process will be accessible for pilot counties Fresno, Placer, and Santa Clara.

During the maintenance window, document related functionality in the CARES application will not be accessible.

Action Required

No action required from end-users during this maintenance window.

If users experience any issues with the CWS-CARES, please follow your county process for reporting issues. CWS-CARES County Administrators may contact the CARES Service Desk through the CWDS ServiceNow Customer Support Management (CSM) Portal. Alternate methods are phoning 1-855-292-3444 or via email at Servicedesk@cwds.ca.gov during normal business hours. You may also email after hours, and a Service Desk representative will contact you the next business day.

All SPOCs, Technical Contacts, and CAD Contacts:

February 19, 2026 UPDATE: This is a reminder that the CWDS Infrastructure team and the California Department of Technology (CDT) have scheduled maintenance for the CAD/Business Objects (BO) servers. The production environment’s maintenance window is on Tuesday, February 24, 2026, beginning at 12:00 Noon and concluding at 4:00 PM.

CAD Business Objects (BO) / Business Intelligence (BI) will not be accessible during the scheduled maintenance window. Any BO reports scheduled to run during this timeframe will be affected. The CWDS Infrastructure team recommends to run all reports before 12:00 Noon on those dates.

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The CWDS Infrastructure team and the California Department of Technology (CDT) have scheduled maintenance for the CAD/Business Objects (BO) servers. The maintenance windows are scheduled for the following environments:

Training environment:

Tuesday, February 10, 2026, beginning at 12:00 Noon and concluding at 4:00 PM

Production environment:

Tuesday, February 24, 2026, beginning at 12:00 Noon and concluding at 4:00 PM

CAD Business Objects (BO) / Business Intelligence (BI) will not be accessible during the scheduled maintenance windows. Any BO reports scheduled to run during this timeframe will be affected. The CWDS Infrastructure team recommends to either run all reports before 12:00 Noon on those dates, or on the night prior of these scheduled maintenance days.

Action Required

Review scheduled BO reports and reschedule report jobs to avoid the scheduled maintenance window. Rerun the missed report jobs, if necessary.

Contact the IBM Help Desk (800-428-8268) to report any issues with your Business Objects content.

ALL SPOCs, Technical Contacts and CAD Contacts:

The California Department of Technology (CDT) has scheduled maintenance of the SAFE Cloud service. The maintenance begins on Saturday, February 21, 2026, at 8:00 PM and concludes on Sunday, February 22, 2026, at 2:00 AM. The activity will cause interruptions in the SAFE Cloud service. Some Business Objects (BO) reports will fail to send, or automated scripts may fail to retrieve from SAFE during this scheduled maintenance.

Action Required

All users should logoff of the SAFE Cloud service prior to the start of the stated maintenance timeframe. Please check on your scheduled BO SAFE reports and automated FTP scripts. If needed, re-run the reports and scripts.

Contact the IBM Help Desk (800-428-8268) to report any issues with your Business Objects content in SAFE.

All Pilot County RFA Implementation Coordinators and SPOCs:

The CWS-CARES team has scheduled maintenance activity for the CWS-CARES production environment for Tuesday, February 17, 2026, beginning at 5:00 PM and concluding at 8:00 PM. During the maintenance window, the CWS-CARES Resource Family Approval (RFA) Application Submission, Review, and Approval Process will be accessible for pilot counties Fresno, Placer, and Santa Clara.

During the maintenance window, document related functionality in the CARES application will not be accessible.

Action Required

No action required from end-users during this maintenance window.

If users experience any issues with the CWS-CARES, please follow your county process for reporting issues. CWS-CARES County Administrators may contact the CARES Service Desk through the CWDS ServiceNow Customer Support Management (CSM) Portal. Alternate methods are phoning 1-855-292-3444 or via email at Servicedesk@cwds.ca.gov during normal business hours. You may also email after hours, and a Service Desk representative will contact you the next business day.

All SPOCs, Technical Contacts, and SBC Administrators:

The California Department of Technology (CDT) has scheduled maintenance on Saturday, February 28, 2026, beginning at 6:00 AM and concluding at 10:00 AM. During the maintenance window, CDT will apply Standard Monthly OS Security Patches to SBCS Infrastructure Servers. There is no anticipated outage for this maintenance; however, CDT is asking that everyone log off from the Citrix SBC system, if not actively using it during the maintenance window.
 

Action Required

If users experience any issues with CWS/CMS, please follow your county process for reporting issues or you may contact the IBM Boulder Help Desk at 1-800-428-8268.

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. 

All SPOCs and Technical Contacts:

CWS/CMS Code Table Refresh – February 11, 2026

Updated code table files will be delivered to county servers on Wednesday, February 11, 2026, between 1:00 PM and 4:00 PM. Files will be placed in the BaseCTB folder on county servers. For most counties, standard delivery methods will then automatically distribute these files from the server to end-user workstations.

This refresh primarily ensures that newly imaged machines or machines that have not logged in recently receive the latest code table files.

Impact and Delivery

• Dedicated counties: No action required. Updates will be automatically delivered to end users.
• Coex counties:
  • If using the Windows logon script to deliver code table files (most counties): No action required.
  • If not using the logon script (e.g., virtual environments): Please pick up the files from the BaseCTB folder and include them in your virtual images. These files should only be delivered to workstations if they are newer than the existing code tables. If manually delivering them, they go in the c:\cacw\codetbls folder and should overlay existing files of the same name.

Important for Coex Counties

• Your county server must sync with the CWS/CMS Distributed File System Replication (DFSR) to receive the updated files. This typically occurs hourly.
• If needed, verify that your county’s file server is properly mirroring the CWS Distributed File Server.

Applying these updates helps ensure that users have a freshly updated version of the code table files.

Please Note
This refresh will not be enforced. There is no deadline or system lockout associated with this update. While applying the updates is recommended, it is optional.

CARES SPOCs, Implementation Coordinators, OCM Coordinators, County Leadership, Tribe Leadership, Probation Leadership, and State Leadership:

In this Weekly Digest:

• Extended User Scenario Testing (EUST) 3 General Began February 2, 2026! 
• CWS-CARES is Observing President’s Day on February 16, 2026 
• CWS-CARES Core Constituent Demonstrations  
• CWS-CARES Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) of the Week 

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Extended User Scenario Testing (EUST) 3 General Began February 2, 2026! 

The first week of EUST 3 General is now complete; thank you to all 610 testers who logged in between Monday, February 2 and Friday, February 6, 2026!  As of Friday, February 6, the CWS-CARES project has collected 292 feedback items which are currently being processed and prioritized. We will continue to collect feedback until the conclusion of EUST 3 on April 3, 2026. Feedback results will be shared with EUST 3 participants in April 2026.  We truly appreciate your participation in the CWS-CARES testing process. Thank you for your continued collaboration! 

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CWS-CARES is Observing President’s Day on February 16, 2026 

The CWS-CARES Project will observe the President’s Day holiday on February 16, 2026. Please anticipate a delay in communications on this day. Due to the holiday, no Weekly Digest email will be distributed on Monday, February 16, 2026. Weekly Digest emails will resume on Monday, February 23, 2026. 

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CWS-CARES Core Constituent Demonstrations  

Here’s a quick look at the CWS-CARES Core Constituent Demonstrations from the previous and upcoming two weeks. These demonstrations give counties and partners a chance to see key features in action, learn what’s new or coming soon, and share feedback that helps shape ongoing improvements to CWS-CARES.  

View all the previous Product Demonstrations on the CWDS website: CWS-CARES Product Demonstrations. Please note, a log in is required to view all recordings. 

CWS-CARES Core Constituent Demonstrations Held February 2 - 6, 2026: 

• February 2, 2026, 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM: Resource Management (RM): RM Directory Search, Service Arrays and Service Providers 
• February 2, 2026, 3:00 PM – 5:00 PM: Financial Management: Homepages/Reports, Federal Report Cost-Tracking, etc.  

Upcoming CWS-CARES Core Constituent Demonstrations: * 

• No CWS-CARES Core Constituent Demonstrations are currently planned between February 9 – 20, 2026.  

*Please note that dates for CWS-CARES Demonstrations shared here are subject to change. Please check the CWDS Meeting and Event Calendar for the most up-to-date schedule. 

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CWS-CARES Frequently Asked Question (FAQ) of the Week 

We’re introducing a new feature in the CWS-CARES Weekly Digest: FAQ of the Week. Each week, we’ll highlight a common question from counties and partners, along with a clear, practical answer to help you better understand CWS-CARES functionality.  

February 9, 2026, FAQ of the Week 

Q: Within documents, is it possible to redact content? 

A: Yes, CWS-CARES allows users with the appropriate permissions to redact information in documents such as PDFs, Word files, and Excel files. All redacted documents are saved as PDFs, even if the original file was created in another format. 
Redaction can be done in two ways: 

• Manual redaction: selecting specific portions of the document to block out. 
• Automatic redaction: searching for a word or phrase and redacting all occurrences at once. 

Users must enter a reason for the redaction, and the system records who completed it and when. The original document is never changed – users can save the redacted version as either a new document or a new version of the original. 
Only users with the correct role-based permissions (such as case workers or supervisors) will see the redaction option, and access depends on their role and their access to the case or record. 

Have a question? Send it to Customer Relations at CWS_CustRel@otsi.ca.gov and we’ll be happy to help. To view all of the CWS-CARES FAQs, please visit the CWDS Website: CWS-CARES FAQs | CWDS Website.  

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Share Your Feedback and Subscribe 

Thank you for following our progress! Share your feedback on this CWS-CARES Weekly Digest here: CWS-CARES Weekly Digest Feedback Form. Subscribe to future issues here: CWS-CARES Weekly Digest Subscription Form.  

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Action Required

We request that all CWS-CARES Single Point of Contacts (SPOCs) and Implementation Coordinators coordinate and distribute the CWS-CARES Weekly Digest to all staff impacted by CWS-CARES, at their discretion.