Executive Summary

On March 25 - 29, 2002 staff of the Children's Bureau, ACF Region VI, and the Office of Information Services (OIS) conducted an assessment review of New Mexico's Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS). The AFCARS reporting period under review was April 1, 2001 through September 30, 2001.

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 is being entered and extracted, and the quality of the data submitted. Each of the 103 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:

A very dedicated staff and good working relationship between technical and program staff.
There were no areas found to be in full non-compliance.
A significant percentage (49%) of the foster care and adoption (51%) elements were in full compliance.
There were many areas needing improvement that the staff had already identified.
There is good use of the information system by caseworkers to record case information.

The State was not in full compliance with the technical general requirements. The area that needs to be addressed pertains to the States conversion process from the legacy system to the Family Automated Client Tracking System (FACTS). Based on the on-site findings and the post site-visit analysis, thirty (49%) of the sixty-six foster care data elements fully met the AFCARS requirements. Twenty-two (33%) of the foster care elements require, at a minimum, system changes, and twelve (18%) elements require training for case workers and monitoring of the data to ensure improvement in the quality and accuracy of the data. In the adoption data set, nineteen (51%) out of thirty-seven elements fully met the AFCARS requirements, fourteen (38%) elements require, at a minimum, system modifications, and four (11%) elements require training for caseworkers and monitoring of the data to ensure improvement in the quality and accuracy of the data. Once the program logic changes are implemented, the State will need to monitor caseworkers' data entry to ensure that the quality of the data improves.

Between the time of the on-site review and the issuance of this report, the State's information systems staff made a few corrections to the program code that maps and extracts the AFCARS data. This report and the AFCARS Improvement Plan reflect those changes. As a result of the modifications made to the system, the elements rating factors for some of the elements were changed.

There were three significant issues identified that warrant attention. These were:

Incorrect dates of removal from home (first and latest), number of removals, and number of placements for the current removal episode for children in care at the time of conversion from the legacy system to FACTS;
AFCARS data representing a false "no" for whether a child has been diagnosed with a disability or has been previously adopted; and,
Lack of information on therapeutic foster care placements and therapeutic foster parents.

In addition, there are a number of changes that will need to be made to the system (many are minor) and training will need to be provided to the caseworkers.

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 (See Tab A). The minimum tasks that are required to correct the State's reporting of the AFCARS data are included in the AFCARS Improvement Plan (Tab B).

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 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 changes have been 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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