AFCARS Assessment Review Report - Administration for Children ...

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Maryland staff have continued efforts to increase the use of CHESSIE by field staff andsupervisors. Some recommendations made during the March 2007 technical assistance site visitby the National Resource Center for Child Welfare Data and Technology (NRC-CWDT), such asa regular newsletter about CHESSIE and training that integrates both CHESSIE and Maryland’schild welfare policy, have been implemented.Maryland worked with the University of Maryland this past summer to perform data entry ofcase information. Graduate students helped complete data entry for out-of-home placementsover a period of several months. Currently, frontline staff are focusing on updating and ensuringthe accuracy of current placements. Maryland should continue to monitor for missing data andprovide feedback to local offices for correction.At the time of the visit, Maryland staff were also preparing to begin distributing a report thatcontains missing AFCARS data elements by child and unit. This should help facilitate data entryefforts and allow supervisors to monitor data completeness for cases in their units.Reporting PopulationIn general, the State is correctly reporting the required foster care and adoption population fromthe child welfare system. One exception is that States are required to report information on alladoptions in which the agency is involved, including all adopted children for whom the Stateagency is providing adoption assistance (either ongoing or for nonrecurring expenses), care orservices directly or by contract or agreement with other private or public agencies. (45 CFR1355.40(a)(3)). The State indicated it has adoption agreements for a subsidy and/or services withfamilies who adopted a child from a private adoption agency. Currently, these records are notbeing reported in AFCARS because the State’s information system does not have the capacity tocollect the information on cases that were not previous foster care cases. The system’s designrequires there to be an open foster care case before an adoption case can be created. At the timeof the AFCARS review the State team indicated they were reviewing possible solutions. TheState’s initial AFCARS Improvement Plan must include the State’s plan for making themodifications to the system and the timeline for implementing the changes.Technical RequirementsThere are two technical requirement items that were found to be non-compliant with AFCARSreporting. One is related to the design and structure of CHESSIE and how the adoption recordsare selected in the extraction code. The code does not exclude adoption cases that do not have afinal adoption legalization date. The primary problem is with the structure of the system.Currently, all adoption records that are in the adoption (“Case 3”) module in CHESSIE arereported. These cases include records in which an adoption payment is made to the family priorto the adoption finalization. Some of these adoptions have been finalized and some have not.The State staff discussed possible solutions to address this problem. The State may need todevelop an interim short-term solution to prevent records without a finalized adoption date frombeing submitted.US DHHS/ACF/ACYF/Children’s Bureau 5
The other technical area needing correction is the extraction and submission of subsequent 2 datafiles. One of the technical requirements for reporting the foster care and adoption files is that thedata must be extracted from the data system as of the last day of the reporting period (45 CFR1355.40(b)(1)). This means that data that is entered after the last day of the data collection cycleis not to be included in the regular 3 file. For the purposes of files that are resubmitted (i.e. asubsequent file), the data extracted are to reflect the circumstances of the case for the reportperiod being submitted. For instance, if a State is re-submitting the data for the period April 1,2006 – September 30, 2006 (2006B) on July 2, 2007, the data is to reflect the events of the casefor the 2006B report period. This means that if the child had a periodic review that occurred onMay 5, 2006, that is the date to be reported for foster care element #5, date of recent periodicreview. If the child’s case plan goal was reunification during the 2006B timeframe, but as ofJuly 2, 2007 the goal is adoption, the case plan goal for 2006B must be reported as reunification.The State’s current extraction process would be reporting newer information for many of the dataelements. This has implications for the data used in the Child and Family Services Review DataProfile, the Child Welfare Outcomes Report, and other analysis done by the Children’s Bureau.Data ElementsThis section highlights those areas that require the more significant changes to the informationsystem and/or the extraction routine. In regard to the adoption data elements, all of the elementsexcept for the State identification number, report period, record number, and State agencyinvolvement elements received a rating factor of “2.” This is primarily due to the neededchanges to CHESSIE and the extraction code for recording and extracting private agencyadoptions of a special needs child. The adoption matrix does indicate what the rating wouldhave been if the State were correctly recording and reporting these children.Race InformationThe most significant issue with the collection of race data is the use of fields for “primary” and“secondary” race. States are to collect and report all races that a person identifies. If a personidentifies with one or more races the worker may be hesitant to enter the information and make adetermination as to which race is the “primary” race. The State should consider consolidatingthese fields into one multi-select field.Also, there is a need to ensure that workers are asking individuals this information directly andincluding all races with which a person identifies, so that workers are not selecting a race basedon their own observations. The Federal team also provided the State with suggestions of otheroptions to add to the screen for workers to select. For instance, if the caseworker asks theindividual to identify all races, but the person does not want to give the worker that information,then the worker could select the option “declined.” In this way, it is clear to the worker whatoption should be selected and the State can track the frequency of this response.2 Submissions that are received after the AFCARS due dates for a regular report (May 15 or November 14) areconsidered subsequent data files.3 An AFCARS State data file for a current report period that is submitted during the appropriate transmission timeframe, April 1- May 15 and October 1-November 14.US DHHS/ACF/ACYF/Children’s Bureau 6
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