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Resources and Tools > Fact Sheets
Promising Practices
Found During Onsite AFCARS Reviews—#1
Since Since 1994, federal law and regulation
have required states to collect case-level information
on all children for whom the state child welfare agency
has responsibility for placement, care, or supervision
and on children adopted under the auspices of the
state’s public child welfare agency. The Adoption
and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS)
includes information on foster and adoptive parents.
The information required by AFCARS is what a social
worker would normally collect during the course of
assessment, planning, and service provision, so workers
do not need to collect additional information solely
for the purpose of meeting AFCARS requirements. The
Administration for Children and Families (ACF) uses
the data for many purposes, such as responding to
requests from Congress and the public for current
data on children in foster care or those who have
been adopted; policy decisions; budget decisions and
state allocations; monitoring; and technical assistance
for states.
The information collected
and reported via AFCARS is critical to the federal
government. The government uses it to determine a
state’s level of compliance with the national standards
on child safety, permanence, and well-being. In connection
with these standards, all states have undergone a
Child and Family Services Review (CSFR) and have developed
a CFSR-related Program Improvement Plan. The government
either has reviewed or will review the automated information
systems of states with an operational Statewide Automated
Child Welfare Information System, and at some point,
expects all states to have an AFCARS Assessment Review.
The following discusses promising practices found
during the AFCARS assessment review process. State
AFCARS reviews conducted to this point, with the exception
of Vermont’s, have been in states with Statewide Automated
Child Welfare Information System (SACWIS) systems.
As a part of the mandatory requirements for the implementation
of a SACWIS, states are required to report AFCARS
data. This information is intended to assist all states
in improving the quantity and quality of the information
that they report via AFCARS regardless of whether
they have a SACWIS or not. It is hoped, however, that
this information can assist those states that are
currently planning or developing their SACWIS applications
to ensure they will be able to correctly gather and
report AFCARS data.
To improve the quality
and quantity of the required AFCARS information, states
have incorporated a number of functions and features
into their automated child welfare applications. As
quality assurance tools, these features supplement
the AFCARS utilities provided by the Children’s Bureau
and should not be considered as a replacement for
them.
Automated System
Features
Some of the initial
efforts to improve data quality and quantity incorporated
into automated child welfare applications include
using distinctive colors to highlight and identify
required AFCARS data fields that cannot be made mandatory.
For example, termination of parental rights information
is typically not available at beginning of a case.
If this information is included on the same screen
with other information about birthparents, making
it mandatory may not be an option. Another example
is the addition of AFCARS summary screens, in which
all foster care or adoption data elements for a particular
client are available for review by the worker and
their supervisor. In addition, if appropriate, definitions
and instructions for specific AFCARS data elements
have been included. For instance, on the screen where
racial information is recorded, the instruction to
“select all that apply” encourages workers
to select multiple races if a client indicates that
they consider themselves to be of more than one race.
Another example is to clearly define within the automated
application (using the AFCARS definition) when it
is appropriate to use the selection “unable
to determine.” In addition to the examples cited
above, another promising practice is to identify AFCARS
elements that require the client to answer specific
questions and encourage workers to ask these questions
of the client. The automated application should never
attempt to derive an answer that should be asked of
and answered only by the client.
Specialized
Reports
Many states have found
it extremely helpful to their staff to produce and
distribute detail reports and exception reports that
list by worker, case, and client the information contained
in the case record and the information that is missing
from the case record for specific AFCARS data elements.
These reports are typically produced and distributed
on a monthly basis. Many states use intranet technology
to make information from these reports readily available
to their field staff and casework supervisors.
Missing AFCARS
Information
For AFCARS extraction
and submission purposes, information not collected
or not available for a particular client record (for
whatever reason) is mapped as all blanks (not all
zeros, all 9s, etc.). Information that is missing
or not collected should never be mapped to any valid
AFCARS value.
Technical Assistance: Readers may obtain technical assistance from the Children’s
Bureau’s National Resource Center for Child Welfare Data and Technology (NRC-CWDT). The resource
center can be contacted at its Web page: http://nrccwdt.org.
If you wish to request onsite technical assistance
from the NRC-CWDT, contact your ACF Regional Office.
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