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Home > Statistics & Research > AFCARS Assessment Reviews > Hawaii Assessment Review > Hawaii AFCARS Assessment Report: Background
Background
The Children's Bureau is committed to assisting States in the
collection of reliable and accurate data from the Adoption and
Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS). To this end, an
AFCARS assessment review (AAR) process was developed. The State's
information system is assessed against the AFCARS requirements in
the Federal regulation and policy issuances. The AFCARS assessment
review evaluates a State's information system's capability to
collect, extract, and transmit the AFCARS data accurately to the
Administration for Children and Families (ACF). A second focus of
the AFCARS review is to assess the accuracy of the collection and
documentation of information related to the foster care and/or
adoption case of a child.
The review process goes beyond the edit checks that must be met
by a State in order to pass the AFCARS compliance error standards.
The review also ascertains the extent to which a State meets all of
the AFCARS requirements and the quality of its data. Additionally,
while the review is an assessment of the State agency's collection
and reporting of AFCARS data, it is also an opportunity for Federal
staff to provide substantive technical assistance to State agency
staff. During the review, the Federal team identifies improvements
to be made to the system and recommends changes to the program code
used to extract the AFCARS data.
Each AAR consists of a thorough analysis of the State's system
technical documentation for the collection, extraction and
reporting of the AFCARS data. In addition to this review of
documentation, the Federal AFCARS team reviews each data element
with the State team to gain a better understanding of the State's
child welfare practice and policy and State staff's understanding
of the data elements. The data is also compared against a small,
randomly selected number of hard copy case files. Through this
exercise, the accuracy of the State's data conversion process and
understanding of the information reported to AFCARS is tested.
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