Conclusion

In summary, the State must ensure that all children who have been removed and are out of their home for 24 or more hours are included in the AFCARS population. This includes children in 96-hour holds, runaways, those on trial home visits, and those in SAFEKIDS placements. The State needs to modify the extraction program code by removing the default settings. The State must map all missing data to blanks and encourage the workers to keep the electronic case file up-to-date. This will provide data that is not misleading or inaccurate. Additionally, as a result of LINK being used primarily for payment purposes and not as a case management information system, there are many gaps in the information on children in foster care, especially around placement information.

Tab B contains the AFCARS Improvement Plan. The plan contains the AFCARS general requirements and the data elements that have been determined to not satisfy the requirements in the Federal regulation. Each has a matrix that contains a column for the task, the date the task is to be completed, and for comments.

Within 30 days after the receipt of this report and the attached AFCARS Improvement plan, State staff are requested to contact the ACF Regional Office with proposed timeframes for implementing the improvement plan. The State and the ACF Regional Office (in conjunction with the Children's Bureau) will discuss the completion dates outlined by the State and negotiate the final due dates. The State should provide written quarterly updates to the Regional Office. Additionally, the State workplan for implementing the changes to the system and for training of caseworkers must be included in the State's title IV-B Annual Progress and Services Report as part of the information required in 45 CFR 1357.15(t) and 45 CFR 1357.16(a)(5).

After the State completes the system changes, it should contact the ACF Regional Office and provide it with the completed improvement plan. The ACF Regional Office will then provide the State with a set of test case scenarios. These scenarios test the system by requiring the State to enter the information and extract the data, which is then compared to known answers for each scenario. Dates for the submission of the extracted test data file will be arranged with the ACF Regional Office and OIS.

Also, in order to assess the quality of the data, ACF will create a frequency report on the data submitted after the system changes have been implemented. Once ACF and the State agree that the quality of the data is acceptable, the AFCARS Improvement Plan will be considered finished. The State will receive a letter summarizing the final results of the review. No further on-site reviews will be conducted unless information comes to the attention of ACF regarding the quality of the State's data.

The ACF Regional Office will work with the State to determine needed technical assistance, which will be provided to the extent available, to implement the AFCARS Improvement Plan. The State may access technical assistance from the Children's Bureau's National Resource Center for Information Technology in Child Welfare (NRC-ITCW). The Resource Center can be contacted at (877) NRC-ITCW (672-4892), or at its web page: http://www.nrccwdt.org. For on-site technical assistance from the NRC-ITCW, contact your ACF Regional Office.

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