The first Design Ops Sprint Review took place on Sept. 27 where the team delivered a preview of the visual direction the application will be taking. This included a preliminary mockup of the landing page header and dashboard. The Design Ops team is applying universal design elements for building the component library and style guide that will be shared across all the digital services teams. This component library provides a holistic design approach yet allows each digital services team the flexibility to build, implement and test new functionality, iteratively.

The goals of this first Sprint included conducting visual design studies to identify and adopt a consistent look and feel and an inventory of core components for what still needs to be completed. Based on the feedback we received, it was agreed to adopt the ‘professional’ template as the primary look and feel while also including elements that were both ‘warm’ and ‘confident’. Based on preliminary digital design study and a mockup of an intake screen role and were able to achieve consensus on a single design direction going forward. The ultimate goal being a look and feel that is completely accessible yet professional.

Watch a webinar of the first sprint review below:

    

Child Welfare Digital Services will host a Quarterly Stakeholder Forum on Tuesday, October 10, 2017 from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm.

This all-day event will be held onsite at the CWDS campus at 2870 Gateway Oaks Drive in Sacramento as well as via video conference. The agenda will include a general session with a project update and multiple presentations by CWDS digital service teams.

The event will be live webcast via the CWDS website at https://cwds.ca.gov/live

Alternatively, follow the event via WebEx (audio webinar) by registering here.

Event = 662 291 080   Password = Fall17

Please send any questions to:  comms@cwds.ca.gov

See the agenda below:

 

On July 11, CWDS held a quarterly forum for stakeholders where state and county executives provided an update on the project's progress.  Below is a chart from the slide deck highlighting past and future procurement activity starting from June, 2016. A number of contracts have been awarded this year, with more procurements scheduled.  See the vendor sectionof our website for more details.



 

Cambria Solutions and Accenture Start July 2017

Child Welfare Digital Services (CWDS) has selected Cambria Solutions and Accenture from the state’s Agile Development Pre-Qualified (ADPQ) vendor pool to work on the Case Management digital service. Case Management is the largest of eight services under development to create the system that will replace the existing Child Welfare Services / Case Management System (CWS/CMS) used by county case workers across California.

The Case Management digital service will provide county child welfare agencies a comprehensive, automated case management system that fully supports effective child welfare practices, and incorporates the functional requirements mandated by federal regulations. It will provide state and county caseworkers, supervisors, staff and managers with a simple and efficient tool for maintaining a case record in a variety of situations, including: family needs assessments, court supervised or voluntary in-home services, foster care placement, family reunification services, and permanency planning services.

The project is pioneering the development and operation of cloud-based software in the public sector, following a DevOps project lifecycle rather than a traditional design, development and implementation (DDI) / maintenance and operations (M&O) model. The project is taking an innovative new approach for California state government, using agile methodologies, free/open source software (FOSS) and user-centered design.

The project’s first code release, in March 2017, came six months before the selection and award of a system integrator and two to three years before any working software would have occurred under the previous monolithic “waterfall” approach.

Berkeley-based CivicActions has been selected to provide technical consulting services for Child Welfare Digital Service (CWDS), the project announced on June 30.

CivicActions will provide six full-time staff to the project’s infrastructure team, helping provide a continuum of services and capabilities including integration, deployment, and automation. The new team members triple the project’s infrastructure engineer count from two to six, with the introduction of four new engineers, a performance analyst, and an experienced release manager who will also be the team’s Scrum Master.

CWDS is pioneering the development and operation of cloud-based software following a DevOps project lifecycle rather than a traditional design, development and implementation (DDI) / maintenance and operations (M&O) model.   The project is taking an innovative new approach for California state government, using Agile methodologies, free/open source software (FOSS) and user-centered design.

The project consists of eight digital services to replace the legacy system that manages casework for county child protective services programs, foster home approvals and licensing, and other critical functions that allow case workers to protect children.

With the project’s first code release in March, teams of state staff and contractors, including designers, developers and project managers, have been working to get started under the new approach.  Momentum is building as more developer teams will be hired in the coming months.

County Consultant Louis Cretaro has been selected to serve as Service Manager for the Court Processing Digital Service, CWDS announced on June 28th. Cretaro, who currently serves on the CWDS project as a consultant for the California Welfare Directors Association, previously served as a Health and Human Service applications team supervisor in Placer County for 15 years.  He will also continue to serve as a subject matter expert on the project's interfaces team. One of eight digital services within the CWDS project, the Court Processing Digital Service will provide state and county staff with software that allows a child welfare professional to generate, complete, submit, and record submission of proper legal notice, court reports and court results. Working closely with county representatives and the CWS/CMS user community across the state, CWDS Service Managers lead product design and development teams to create software for the project to replace the legacy system used by case workers to help protect children in California.      

Child Welfare Digital Services will host a Quarterly Stakeholder Forum on Tuesday, July 11, 2017 from 10:00 am to 3:00 pm.

The CWDS Implementation Team recently invited over 300 CWDS stakeholders to attend one of seven “CWDS Implementation Overview” meet-and-greet sessions. Those notified included Child Welfare Services and Probation Single Points of Contact (SPOCs), Technical Contacts, and Training Contacts from all 58 California counties, Kurok and Yurok Tribe contacts, CWS/CMS Regional User Group Chairs, and 6 CWS/CMS training academies. The CWDS Implementation Team conducted the seven sessions during the week of May 29. The purpose was to share high-level information about the implementation approach, identify some of the activities involved during implementation readiness, and provide a way for the participants to contact us and access project materials. The agenda specifically covered the following topics:

1. What is Implementation?
2. Why is Implementation Important?
3. How do we Communicate?
4. How can you Prepare for Implementation?
5. What’s Next?
6. How to Contact Us
7. Q&A

In all, we had over 75 participants who officially RSVP’d and many more who called in at their convenience. Thirty-seven counties were represented along with three RTAs. During the sessions, the CWDS Implementation Team received questions; most of which fall into the categories below:

1. System training/Training-the-Trainer (TTT)/Staff or End-User Training.
2. More information about the Contractor Implementation Lead (IL) who will support each “Org” (which is the general name for the entities receiving implementation services).
3. Implementation dates and timeframes.
4. Access to the PPT used during the sessions and the recordings of each of the 7 sessions.

Coming Soon:  The CWDS Implementation Team will post the presentation, all 7 of the recorded sessions, and the full Q&A list to the Implementation Portal in the next couple of weeks. Remember that a CWS/CMS User Login is needed to access the Implementation Portal.

• https://cwscms.osi.ca.gov/Portal/Digital-Services-Implementation-Portal
• Go to the Implementation Management Portal area and click on Communication

Child Welfare Digital Services produces a monthly report for the Legislature and stakeholders to follow as the project works to replace the CMS/CWS legacy system. Read the May 2017 report online: CWDS Update May 2017

CWDS conducts monthly Solution Demonstrations to provide all stakeholders with an overview of our latest system developments.  Please join us via the following WebEx meeting using the link below.

CWDS Solution Demo June 2017
Date: Monday, June 19, 2017
Time: 2:00-3:00 pm, Pacific Daylight Time (San Francisco, GMT-07:00)

WebEx information:
Event number: 663 823 903 Event password: Dem62017 Event address: https://cwdsforums.webex.com/cwdsforums/onstage/g.php?MTID=eebd8f7136db7dc2e69cee3202a5859b5

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Audio conference information
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USA Toll: +1-240-454-0879
Access code: 663 823 903