Executive Summary

From September 16 - 20, 2002 staff of the Children's Bureau, Administration for Children and Families (ACF) Region III, and the Office of Information Services (OIS) conducted an assessment review of Delaware's Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS). The AFCARS reporting period under review was October 1, 2001 through March 31, 2002.

Two major areas are assessed as part of an AFCARS assessment review: the AFCARS general requirements and data elements. The general requirements include the population that is to be reported to AFCARS and the technical requirements for constructing a data file. The data elements are assessed on the basis of whether the State is meeting the AFCARS definitions for the information required, if the correct data are being entered and extracted, and the quality of the data submitted. Each of the 103 foster care and adoption data elements is rated on the basis of its compliance with the requirements in the AFCARS regulation, policy guidance, and technical bulletins. Information that is collected from each of the components of the review is combined to rate each data element. A scale of one (does not meet AFCARS standards) to four (fully meets AFCARS standards) is used to assign a factor to each element. The general information requirements are also assessed and rated separately using the same scale.

Strengths identified by the Federal review team during the review include:

The State converted historical information on open cases.
The State is correctly reporting the adoption population.
The State is reporting private agency adoptions.
The State has a good method to collect primary and secondary special needs information.

The State is in full compliance with the technical general requirements. However, the State is not in full compliance with the foster care reporting population. The State title IV-B/IV-E agency (Department of Services to Children, Youth, and their Families (DCYF)), includes the Division of Family Services (DFS), the Division of Youth Rehabilitative Services (YRS) and the Division of Child Mental Health (CMH). The State is appropriately including the DFS and YRS population in the AFCARS, but not the CMH children that are placed in out-of-home care under DCYF's responsibility for care, placement, or supervision.

Another issue identified with the foster care population relates to those children that are returned to their home while the agency retains responsibility for placement, care or supervision. Children that are returned home under these circumstances for a specified period of time must be included in the AFCARS report until the agency no longer has responsibility for the child. If the child is returned home for a non-specified period of time, after six months the child is no longer part of the AFCARS population, in accordance with ACF policy. The agency should report the child as "discharged" and include the appropriate outcome reason.

Based on the on-site findings and the post-site visit analysis, 32% (21) of the foster care and 54% (20) of the adoption elements are correctly reported, and 50 percent (33) of the foster care and 24 percent (9) of the adoption data elements require system modifications. In addition, 18 percent (12) of the foster care and 22 percent (8) of the adoption elements are correctly extracted to the AFCARS file, but the quality of the data needs to improve.

The data elements that will require the most significant system modifications are: race/Hispanic origin, diagnosed disabilities, previously adopted, date of current placement setting, and the most recent case plan goal. In regard to the information on disabilities and previous adoptions, the State's method of collecting and extracting the data are giving a false "no" response. If the appropriate information is not selected and is left blank, the program code maps this to a "no." Therefore, one cannot ascertain if this is a true "no," or simply information that the worker has not completed or updated.

A summary of the significant findings is included in the report, and detailed findings can be found in the "Detailed Findings Matrices" for the foster care and adoption data elements, and the general requirements (Tab B). Some rating factors differ from those given on the draft findings matrices left with the State, due to further post-site visit analysis. The minimum tasks that are required to correct the State's reporting of the AFCARS data are included in the AFCARS Improvement Plan (Tab C).

Within 30 calendar days after the receipt of this report and the attached AFCARS improvement plan, State staff are requested to contact the ACF Regional Office to set due dates for completing the tasks in the improvement plan. Test cases will be provided to the State 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 State 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 State from the Children's Bureau confirming this fact. The letter will include a summary of the actions taken by the State and the completed AFCARS Improvement Plan. No further on-site reviews will be conducted unless ACF receives information questioning the quality of the State's data, and it is determined that an on-site visit is necessary.

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