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TO: County Directors of Social Services
ATTENTION: DSS Child Welfare Services Program Administrators
DSS Child Welfare Services Supervisors
DSS Data Entry Supervisors
SUBJECT: New CSDW Query for Monthly Monitoring of Caseworker Visits with Children in Foster Care Recorded in MRS
DATE: February 11, 2010
I. GENERAL INFORMATION
A new State-Sanctioned query is now available in the Client Services Data Warehouse (CSDW) to help you determine if your visits with children in foster care are being recorded in the MRS database. This query, designed in response to requests from the Children’s Services Committee, should facilitate your ability to monitor your county’s progress toward ensuring all children in foster care are visited on a monthly basis and that those visits are being recorded in the Multiple Response System (MRS).
This query is located in the CPPS/MRS Foster Care Folder under State Sanctioned queries. The attached Instructions describe how to access and run this query and how to utilize the results. The query is designed to be run for one month at a time, and may be run for a past month or the current month.
The query name is “Monthly Foster Care Caseworker Visit Report for Select Month”. Run properly, the query excludes:
1. Children in foster care placed into North Carolina through the Interstate Compact for the Placement of Children (ICPC)
2. “Children” in foster care who are 18 or older, or who turned 18 during the “target month” for which the query is run.
The results of the query are listed alphabetically by Worker Last Name, First Initial and Middle Initial. Please note that if a worker is listed more than once on the report with different spellings of the worker’s name, it is because the worker has multiple Worker ID numbers in the master ‘Worker Table’ in SIS. To correct this situation, you will need to follow procedures described in DSS ADMINISTRATIVE LETTER Performance Management/Reporting and Evaluation Management No. PM-REM-AL- 0507. A few notes about the query follow:
Monthly Foster Care Caseworker Visit Report for Select Month
This query provides information on all children in care for the entire specified month, with the exception of the excluded children mentioned above. If run for the current month, it will list children in care from the first day of the month through the day prior to the day the query is run. (The results of the query are based on data keyed into the CPPS and MRS systems as of the previous day. The CSDW tables are updated each evening.) Under each Worker Name, it lists children by name with SIS Client ID and the specific date and location (in or out of home) of each foster care visit. In addition, the Type of Authority Code (Field # 19 on form DSS- 5094) is listed. This will allow you to determine if children who do not have any visits listed have placement types that may prevent them from being entered into MRS.
Information displayed (Results)
When this query is run, the following information will be displayed:
Worker Name – last name, first initial, middle initial
Child’s Name – last name, first name, middle initial
SIS Client ID – SIS ID number assigned to that child in your county
Type of Authority Code – the numeric value from field #19 on form DSS-5094
Placement Authority Begin Date – date the child’s placement episode began
Placement Authority End Date – date the child’s placement episode ended (this will be blank if the child is still under DSS placement authority)
Foster Care Visit Date – the date of each foster care visit recorded in the MRS System (if blank, no visit has been recorded in MRS for that child for that month)
Visit in Home? – indicates if the visit took place in or out of the child’s current residence (Y = visit in child’s residence, N = visit not in child’s residence)
Visits Count – indicates the number of visits recorded in MRS for the child for the date and location indicated (if greater than 1, two or more visits have been entered in MRS for the specific date and location combination)
Information requested (Prompts)
The new query has been simplified with regard to the information needed to run the query. When run, it will prompt you for the following information:
County Name – select your county from the list
Enter first day of Target Month (mm/01/ccyy) – enter the first day of the month you are requesting
Enter last day of Target Month (mm/dd/ccyy) – enter the last day of the month you are requesting
Enter last day of Target Month less 18 years (e.g., 01/31/1992 for Target Month of Jan. 2010) – enter the last day of the same month as the Target Month, but 18 years ago; this parameter excludes children 18 or older from the query results
Notes regarding this query:
• Because each visit date and location is displayed, there may be many rows for a single child. Each visit date/location will have a separate row; every child will be listed at least once, even if the visit date and location are blank.
• Listing the type of placement authority code allows managers to determine that some children do not require entries in MRS because they were not part of an assessment (and subsequently do not have a DSS-5104 record) in your county. However, there are some situations where you cannot use the code alone to determine if a child is exempt from entry into MRS. For example if a child comes to DSS via a delinquency court, a CPS assessment does not have to be conducted as custody to DSS is a statutory dispositional option; however, there is not a placement authority code that is specific to delinquency court.
II. ACTION REQUIRED BY COUNTY
Counties are encouraged to use this query in a proactive manner. To be of maximum benefit, visit data should be entered into MRS as soon as possible following each visit made. Using the query to look at data for past months will only be beneficial in cases where visits were made, but not yet entered into MRS. Using it for the current month may alert you to the fact that a visit has not yet been made and/or recorded in MRS, thus affording you the opportunity to ensure that a visit is conducted before the end of the month. Remember: if a child is in care for a full month and no visit is made for that month, none of the visits made for that child during the Federal Fiscal Year will count toward meeting the Federal requirement.
If you have any general questions about this letter, please contact Heather Bohanan of the Performance Management/Reporting and Evaluation Management Section at (919) 334-1237 or Heather.Bohanan@dhhs.nc.gov
Sincerely,
Hank Bowers, Chief
Performance Management/Reporting and Evaluation Management Section
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For questions or clarification on any of the policy contained in these manuals, please contact your local county office. |
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