District of Columbia AFCARS Assessment Report

CONCLUSION

The District has taken a very proactive approach to making necessary technical corrections, both as a result of this review and prior technical assistance provided to the District by the Children's Bureau. The District has also begun to implement methods to assess the quality of its data on an ongoing basis. The District will need to add the areas noted in the "findings" section of this report to its training and quality assurance plans.

The District has a minimal number of "technical" corrections to make to the program code and the screens. Once changes are made to the program code and/or to the data entry screens, the quality of the data will need to be monitored for accuracy. It may be necessary to implement additional training for caseworkers and monitoring by supervisors to ensure accurate data entry. The District may want to consider system ticklers/edits that will remind workers to update the information at appropriate times, and review the data in the file at the time of a periodic review. (See AFCARS Federal regulation at 45 CFR 1355 Appendix A, I. I. E.)

Tab B contains the AFCARS Improvement Plan (AIP). The AIP contains the AFCARS data elements that do not meet the requirements in the Federal regulations. Each matrix contains a column that identifies the task(s), the date the task is to be completed, and one for comments. Within 30 calendar days after the receipt of this report and the attached AFCARS Improvement Plan, the District staff are to submit the Improvement Plan electronically to the ACF Regional Office with estimated dues dates for completing the tasks in the Improvement Plan. An electronic copy of the final matrices will be e-mailed to your staff. The District should provide electronic quarterly updates of its progress to the Regional Office, Alba Sierra and Angelina Palmiero. Test cases will be provided to the District once all of the required modifications are completed. Dates for the submission of the extracted test data file will be arranged with the ACF Regional Office and OIS. Once ACF and the District agree that the quality of the data is acceptable, the AFCARS Improvement Plan will be considered finished, and a letter will be sent to the District from the Children's Bureau confirming this fact. The letter will include a summary of the actions taken by the District and the completed AFCARS Improvement Plan.

Additionally, the District's plan for implementing the changes to the system and for caseworker training must be included in the District'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).

The District should contact the ACF Regional Office once it has completed its AIP. The ACF Regional Office will then provide the District with a set of test case scenarios. These scenarios test the system by requiring the District to enter the information and extract the data, which is then compared to known answers for each scenario. Dates for the submission of the test data file will be arranged with the ACF Regional Office and the Office of Information Systems.

In order to assess the quality of the data, a frequency report will be generated on the data submitted as changes to the system and training are addressed and after all system changes and training are completed. Once ACF and the District agree that the quality of the data is acceptable, and all tasks and revisions based on the test cases have been completed, the District must submit the completed AIP to the ACF Regional Office. The District will receive a letter summarizing the final results of the review.

The ACF Regional Office will work with the District to determine if technical assistance is needed, and available, to implement the AFCARS Improvement Plan. The District may obtain technical assistance from the Children's Bureau's resource centers. To request technical assistance from the resource centers, contact your ACF Regional Office.

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