CDSS to Provide County Probation Access to CWS/CMS

Tuesday Morning  —

Effective October 1, 2010, county probation departments will be able to have access to the County Welfare Services/Child Management System (CWS/CMS) database, the statewide system used for reporting case data on children in the Child Welfare System to provide policy makers with information.

Probation departments will be the first entities other than public child welfare departments who will have access to the CWS/CMS database. Currently, county probation staff collect information on foster care and group home placements in their systems via paper forms, which are then sent to Sacramento and then entered into the CWS/CMS database by CDSS staff. According to CDSS, providing probation with direct access will help provide service coordination opportunities for county child welfare and probation departments.

Moreover, effective October 1, 2010, California must begin collecting data on 17 year olds receiving Independent Living Services, and follow 60% of those youth through age 21, to enter outcome data into the National Youth Transition Database (NYTD). Collecting data directly from probation departments, in addition to county child welfare, will help meet this federal deadline.

Tuesday Morning wishes to thank the CDSS staff for providing this information in their quarterly newsletter.

For any additional information, contact Jackie Rutheiser at jrutheiser@cacfs.org or Doug Johnson at djohnson@cacfs.org.