Maine AFCARS Assessment Review Report

Findings

This section provides the major findings resulting from the review of the State’s AFCARS data collection. Tab A provides detailed information on the findings for the general AFCARS requirements, each of the foster care and adoption data elements, and the case file review. The AFCARS data used for the review were from the report period October 1, 2004 - March 31, 2005.

As part of the post-site visit analysis, the State’s documents, the data, the case file review findings, and team member notes were assessed to make the final determination of findings. As a result, the original rating factors were modified from those given at the end of the on-site review. The findings matrix in Tab A reports the previous rating with a “strike-through” mark on it, and the new rating. The AFCARS Improvement Plan in Tab B contains the final rating factor.

General Requirement Standards

Population Standards

The State’s reporting of the adoption population is correct, but there were two errors in the foster care reporting population. The State does return children to their own home while the agency retains responsibility for care and placement, and correctly includes these children in the AFCARS reporting population. However, judges may order children home for both specified and non-specified periods of time and the program code, or the system, does not account for either specified or non-specified periods of time. The State must modify the collection and reporting of this information to ensure that if the child is returned home for a specified period of time, regardless of the length of time, these children continue to be included in AFCARS for the entire specified period of time. If there is not a specified period of time noted, and if the child is still at home and the agency has care and placement responsibility after six months, the child is to be reported in AFCARS as “discharged.”

The second issue with the States foster care population relates to the reporting of youth who have reached the age of majority. In Maine, the age of majority is 18. The State does claim title IV-E funds for youth up to their 19 th birthday if the individual meets the title IV-E requirements, and is correctly including them in the AFCARS report. The State also provides services to youth through a voluntary arrangement after the age of 18, regardless of eligibility for title IV-E funds. The State incorrectly includes these youth in AFCARS. Once a child reaches 18, or 19, if appropriate, the State must report these individuals as discharged. The reason for discharge would be “emancipation,” unless there is another appropriate outcome reason.

Technical Requirements

One of the AFCARS requirements is: “The data must be extracted from the data system as of the last day of the reporting period” (45 CFR 1355.40(b)(1)). While the original intent of AFCARS reporting was based on States submitting data files only once for each report period, this has turned out not to be the case. States often make corrections, such as entering data that was missing or correcting inaccurate data, and then re-submit the data file. The Children’s Bureau acknowledged this by allowing States to submit data files for prior report periods, without a restriction on the number of times a report period can be submitted. To account for multiple types of submissions, the Children’s Bureau modified the naming convention for files. There are two file types: a regular file (R) and a subsequent file (S). A regular file is defined as: “An AFCARS State data file for a current report period that is submitted during the appropriate transmission time frame, April 1- May 15 and October 1-November 14.” A subsequent file is defined as “Submissions that are received after the AFCARS due dates for a regular report (May 15 or November 14)” (AFCARS Technical Bulletin #2).

Prior to the AFCARS review and during the on-site review, the State identified that it had problems with re-submitting data for prior report periods. The State staff noted that if they do a resubmission of a prior report period, some of the data may be “overwritten.” This means that instead of reporting data reflecting the case during the prior report period, only data from the present timeframe would be submitted. While this is primarily a database design issue, it results in incorrect data being reported for prior report periods. The State’s statewide automated child welfare information system (SACWIS) should be designed as the State’s electronic case file, and as such, contain the full history of events that occur for each involvement with the child welfare system.

This problem is included as a general requirements error since it involves the creation of a file, storage of data, and affects both foster care and adoption. The element findings matrices includes information on which elements should always reflect the situation for any given report period.

Data Elements

The most significant problem area is the collection and reporting of case plan goals (foster care element #43). The State noted that they are aware of the issues related to the way the system collects this data. Also, this was an area noted as needing improvement during the State’s Child and Family Services Review. The State is addressing what is considered a case plan goal, how workers are to document the goal, and the systems method of collecting and reporting the data. For more detailed information regarding the corrections needed in this area, see foster care element #43 in the foster care findings matrix.

Another significant area needing improvement is the information collected on whether a child was diagnosed as having a disability (foster care elements number 10 through 15). According to the frequency report for the 2005A data, 76% (2,408) of the records indicate a child has not been seen by a qualified professional. However, in Maine's CFSR, Item 22 (Physical Health of the Child) was rated as strength. This indicates that, overall, Maine's children in foster care are receiving appropriate medical screenings and services. The State needs to ensure that the AFCARS data reflects practice.

The design of the screens collecting information on whether a child has been clinically diagnosed with a disability may be contributing to the underreporting of this data and providing false “no” and “not yet determined” responses. There is not a specific field where the question “has this child been diagnosed with a disability” is asked along with the three AFCARS values “yes,” “no,” and “not yet determined.” The State should modify the screens to include the question and develop a process to ensure that case workers enter this data in a timely manner and also update it when new information is obtained. Appropriate changes to the screens related to the disability and special needs elements and improved data entry should allow for a more accurate reflection of the services that are being provided.

The State needs to review and revise its collection and reporting of placement information. There are several codes that the program code checks for that are incorrectly mapped, or should not be included. After reviewing the review findings and the program code, there may be a need for follow-up discussions with the Federal team.

Also, as part of the system demonstration, the State had to enter a test case scenario. When the results of this case were extracted and compared to the expected answers, a significant problem was identified with the number of placement moves. The AFCARS answer was two moves, but the extract indicated 23. The State staff found the problem while the Federal team was on-site. The program code is counting the number of services provided to a child by those agencies that provide services in addition to placement. During the case file review, the reviewers found that the children had fewer placement moves than what was reported to AFCARS.

Many of the other technical corrections needed for the foster care elements relate to correcting the mapping of a State value to the correct AFCARS value. In other instances, the State is including values that are no longer used, and should be removed from the program code and the screen selection list.

In the case file review there were a number of errors found in the dates of first removal, the dates of latest removal, and the number of removal episodes. The majority of the errors were due to the reviewers finding earlier dates of removal than what were reported in the AFCARS data. There were also more removal episodes than what were reported, which also caused errors in the date of discharge from the previous removal episode. While there are some technical corrections that need to be made to these elements, the more significant problem relates to incomplete data entry of the historical information at the time of conversion from the legacy system to SACWIS. The State is required to report the date of a child’s first-ever removal from home and the total number of times a child has entered foster care. The State needs to review and clean up data regarding a child’s prior experience with the foster care system.

There are elements in which the quality of the data needs to improve. There are foster care and adoption elements that require additional training and supervisory oversight for the timeliness and accuracy of data entry. A significant area that is underreported is the circumstances associated with a child’s removal from home.

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