Executive Summary

From March 17 - 21, 2003 staff of the Children's Bureau, Administration for Children and Families (ACF) Region III, and the Office of Information Services (OIS) conducted an assessment review of West Virginia's Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS). The AFCARS reporting period under review was April 1 through September 30, 2002.

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 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.

The State is correctly reporting the adoption population and is in full compliance with the technical general requirements. Based on the on-site findings and the post-site visit analysis, 17% (11) of the foster care and 43% (16) of the adoption elements are reported correctly. Additionally, the State's information system - FACTS (Families and Children's Tracking System) - has several features that can be used to encourage data entry and data accuracy.

The State is not in full compliance with AFCARS standards that apply to the foster care reporting population. We have identified three issues related to the foster care population. One is that the AFCARS standards require States to report on children who have been in out-of-home care for more than 24 hours. The State is including those children who have been in care for less than 24 hours. Also, the State is accurately reporting in AFCARS the children that are returned home while under the agency's responsibility for care and placement. However, if the child is returned home for a specified period of time that exceeds six months, the State is considering the child discharged at the time the child had been home for six months. The State should include these children in AFCARS for the full specified period of time. Lastly, children that are on a "runaway" status are excluded from the foster care population. The State must include children that remain in the agency's responsibility for care, placement or supervision while the child is on "runaway" status.

There are 28 (42%) of the foster care and 14 (38%) adoption data elements that require system modifications. In addition, 27 (41%) of the foster care and 7 (19%) of the adoption elements are correctly extracted to the AFCARS file, but the quality of the data needs to improve.

While there are system modifications (either to the screens or to the program code that extracts the AFCARS data) that need to be completed, many are relatively simple to correct. The more significant issue is the accuracy, completeness and quality of the data extracted from FACTS. In several instances, the program code extracting the AFCARS data maps missing data to valid AFCARS values. This masks underlying data entry issues. This has significant implications for the interpretation of West Virginia's data. For instance, if workers do not enter information regarding a child's medical and/or psychological condition, the interpretation of the data is that children in West Virginia's responsibility for care and placement are not receiving medical exams. The lack of complete data provides an incomplete overview of the practice of child welfare in West Virginia. The State will need to address additional worker training, increased supervisory oversight of timely data entry, and additional edits in the information system.

Another finding was that information on placements for children placed with contract providers is not being reported by the providers to the agency and, therefore, not being entered into the system. This has a significant impact on the accuracy of the current placement setting for the child and the number of placement moves. The case file review indicated that children had more placement moves than were reported in AFCARS.

Other significant findings were in the areas of the information collected on the child's disabilities and the primary basis for special needs. In regard to whether a child has been diagnosed with a disability, there was an error in the program code that required all medical conditions to be present before the response to the question could be "yes." The State staff corrected this problem and the data submitted for the report period ending March 31, 2003 reflects a higher response rate for "yes." The data continues to be underreported. The detailed findings section and the element matrix in Appendix B identify additional system changes that need to occur. Once the system modifications are completed, attention will need to be given to the quality of the data by ensuring timely and accurate data entry by the caseworkers.

The issue related to the adoption element "primary basis for special needs" relates to the program code having a hierarchy that determines the primary basis for special needs on adopted children. There is not a field on the screen for the adoption specialist to enter the primary basis for determining special needs. A field must be added to the screen to identify a primary basis for special needs and remove the hierarchy from the program code.

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 B). Some rating factors differ from those given on the draft findings matrices left with the State, due to further post-site visit analysis. The minimum tasks that are required to correct the State's reporting of the AFCARS data are included in the AFCARS Improvement Plan (Tab C).

Within 30 calendar 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 modifications are 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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