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Executive Summary

From July 11 - 15, 2005, staff of the Children’s Bureau, Administration for Children and Families (ACF) Region VIII, and the Office of Information Services (OIS) conducted an assessment review of Utah’s Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) data collection in SAFE (not an acronym). The AFCARS data used for the review was from the report period October 1, 2004 - March 31, 2005 (2005A).

Two major areas are evaluated as part of an AFCARS assessment review ( AAR): 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. 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 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). The rating factors received by the State are:

The State has technical corrections that must be made to the program code or to the State’s system, but most of these are minor corrections to the extraction code. As noted in the above table, t he State is in full compliance with the technical standards. The State is not in full compliance with two foster care population standards and one of the adoption population standards.

For AFCARS reporting purposes, children that are in the State’s responsibility for care and placement whose first, and/or only, placement is in a locked facility or a hospital, the State should not include this child’s record in AFCARS. If the child moves from these settings to a “traditional” foster care setting, then at this time the child’s record is to be included for reporting purposes and the date of removal would reflect the first “traditional” foster care setting. The State was including these situations in its AFCARS. The State has modified the program code and ACF will review and monitor the data to ensure accuracy.

Also, the staff noted that there are instances when a child is placed in the care and placement responsibility of the agency, but the child may be on runaway status, or runs away after the agency has care and placement responsibility, but before the child is taken to the foster care setting. The State currently excludes children on runaway status in this situation. The State must include these youth in its foster care population at the time of becoming a runaway.

The standards for the adoption population require that the State submit all adoptions that it has involvement with either due to the child being in its foster care system and/or one in which there is an adoption agreement. The State has adoption agreements with, and provides subsidies to, families that adopted a special needs child through a private agency. The State is not including these adoptions in AFCARS, and must begin doing so immediately.

Of the 44 foster care elements that received a rating of “2,” fifteen relate to the circumstances associated with removal and seven relate to demographic information on foster parents. The changes to both of these areas, which the State had already identified and is working on, will involve only a few changes, but impact several elements. The changes will also necessitate changes in the screens in SAFE.

The program code used by Division of Juvenile Justice Services (DJJS) was not reviewed until the post site visit phase, and errors were noted. Consequently, some of the ratings changed from what were given on site, and these corrections must be made to the DJJS program code. Most of these are minor corrections related to mapping of the DJJS values to the AFCARS values. Overall, DCFS is accountable for the accuracy of the AFCARS data. Therefore, the findings are applied regardless of which of the two program codes or data sets were incorrect. However, in certain instances where the quality of the data was a result of inaccuracies in the DJJS data, the findings were separated.

The State needs to improve the quality of its data. Several items were given the rating of “3” because of underreporting of information and will necessitate additional training for caseworkers and monitoring by supervisors to ensure accurate data entry. The State may want to consider reviewing the data in the file at the time of a periodic review to ensure it is accurate and up-to-date. (See AFCARS Federal regulation at 45 CFR 1355 Appendix A. I. I. E.)

Changes made to the system with regard to data entry will inevitably result in improved data accuracy and quality. The State’s semi-annual data submission may, as a result, fail to meet the missing data standard. In order to ensure that the data are complete, the agency must require workers to enter the data and assess its validity prior to submitting it to the Administration for Children and Families (ACF). To do so, the State may utilize the management reports created by the agency, as well as the Data Quality Utility and the Frequency Utility issued by ACF. It is important that the AFCARS data 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 are to submit the Improvement Plan electronically to the ACF Regional Office, OIS, and the Children’s Bureau with estimated dues dates for completing the tasks in the Improvement Plan.

The State should contact the ACF Regional Office once it has completed its AIP. 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 after the system changes have been implemented. 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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