Resource Library

This document is a letter from the Children's Bureau to Utah about the state's successful completion of its Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) improvement plan.

This webpage includes the documentation from New York's Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS) assessment review for fiscal year 2012.

Policy issuances related to AFCARS as well as other resources, such as the Technical Bulletins.

This section includes resources for recruiting and training young people to serve as reviewers on the Federal Review Team for the NYTD Reviews.

This is a side-by-side comparison of the AFCARS data elements published in the Appendix to 45 CFR part 1355 and the final rule issued on December 14, 2016 (81 FR 90524).

This is a presentation that provides an overview of the AFCARS 2019 NPRM and where to submit comments.

This technical bulletin gives reporting instructions and provides examples for the AFCARS 2020 out-of-home care and adoption and guardianship assistance data elements. The regulation for each element is shown in a blue box. Following the regulation language, CB provides explanatory text, examples, differences between AFCARS 1993 and AFCARS 2020, and data reporting standards. This Technical Bulletin was last revised on January 14, 2022.

The Children's Bureau Data Analytics and Reporting Team held their second AFCARS Open Office Hours for 2023. These sessions are for state and tribal program administrators, child welfare data leaders, and information system programmers. It provides an opportunity to ask questions specific to your agency's implementation of AFCARS 2020. The February session covered the recent changes in Technical Bulletins 20, 21, 22, and 23, as well as additional information presented by the NCWDMS team on how to participate in the pilot and use the National Child Welfare Data Management System (NCWDMS) for AFCARS 2020 reporting.

This webinar was a part of the AFCARS Final Rule Training Series. For this webinar, the Children's Bureau shared a revised version of Technical Bulletin 23: Compliance and Data Quality.  

This webinar was the seventh session in the AFCARS Final Rule Training Series. For this webinar, the Children's Bureau shared two new Technical Bulletins: 

• Technical Bulletin 22: Reporting Population and Data Extraction
• Technical Bulletin 23: Compliance and Data Quality

And a revised version of the previously released Technical Bulletin 21: File Structure and Encryption. There was also an opportunity to continue to ask questions so that the Children’s Bureau may develop relevant technical assistance resources.   We encourage you to submit any questions to AFCARS@acf.hhs.gov.