Utah AFCARS Assessment Review Report

Conclusion

The State 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 State by the Children’s Bureau. The State has also begun to implement methods to assess the quality of its data on an ongoing basis. Many of these approaches were developed in conjunction with the State’s CFSR program improvement plan. The State will need to add the areas noted in the “findings” section of this report to its training and quality assurance plans.

There are technical issues that need to be addressed, but many of these are minor. Some data quality issues will improve once the State makes the correction to report as discharged those youth that reach the age of majority and are not receiving title IV-E payments. The State has several issues that need to be addressed, both from a practice perspective and a technological one, regarding placement stability for children in foster care. The AFCARS data must be able to accurately reflect the circumstances of children in foster care and under the agency’s responsibility.

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 State staff must 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 State should provide electronic quarterly updates of its progress to Kevin Gomez in the ACF Regional Office and Angelina Palmiero in the Children’s Bureau.

Additionally, the State’s plan for implementing the changes to the system and for caseworker training must be included in the State’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). Once the State has completed the AIP, notify the ACF Regional Office. The ACF Regional Office will then provide the State with a set of test case scenarios. These scenarios test the system by requiring the State 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 State agree that the quality of the data is acceptable, and all tasks and revisions based on the test cases have been completed, the State must submit the completed AIP to the ACF Regional Office. The State will receive a letter summarizing the final results of the review.

The ACF Regional Office will work with the State to determine if technical assistance is needed, and available, to implement the AFCARS Improvement Plan. The State 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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