Federal Guidance

Effective January 21, 1994 the Federal regulations at 45 CFR 1355.40 that implement Section 479 of Title IV-E of the Social Security Act. These regulations are more commonly known as the "AFCARS regulations". As part of the regulation there are six appendices (A-F). These appendices include the data dictionary, error standards, and the penalty amounts that a title IV-E agency may be assessed if found out of compliance with the AFCARS standards. On January 6, 2012, Interim Final Rules were published that implement amendments made to title IV-E. As a result of these amendments conforming changes were made to the AFCARS regulation (and the appendices to Part 1355) that apply the same requirements for data collection and reporting to a Tribal title IV-E agency as are currently applied to a State title IV-E agency.

In addition to the statute and the regulation, the following policy documents have been issued by the Children's Bureau.

• Children's Bureau's Child Welfare Policy Manual, Section 1, AFCARS.

• ACYF-CB-IM-04-04, issued February 17, 2004. Adoption Incentives and AFCARS Penalties.

• ACYF-PI-CB-95-09 (REVISED), issued 5/23/95. Methods of Extracting Data for Submission to AFCARS

• ACYF-CB-PI-01-07, issued 5/4/2001. Change in the State AFCARS File Name

• ACYF-CB-IM-02-03, issued April 8, 2002. Decision regarding AFCARS Penalties, AFCARS File Name

• ACYF-CB-IM-02-05, issued April 22, 2002. AFCARS Assessment Reviews