Frequently Asked Questions

V1 will cover the minimum functionality required to decommission CWS/CMS, support new policies and programs, such as California’s Family First Prevention Services (FFPS) Program, and lay a solid foundation for full CCWIS compliance in V2. V1 will enable core child welfare workflows for Intake, Case Management, Resource & Financial Management, Courts, Eligibility, Resource Family Approval (RFA), Reporting and Analytics and CARES Administration. V2 will extend V1 to provide advanced Analytics, Provider Management, Financial Management and CARES Administration capabilities. V2 will also include all CCWIS-mandatory data exchanges. The CWS-CARES Project will work with CalSAWS to plan and discuss specific timeframes for completion. 

V1 will cover the minimum functionality required to decommission CWS/CMS, support new policies and programs, such as California’s Family First Prevention Services (FFPS) Program, and lay a solid foundation for full CCWIS compliance in V2. V1 will enable core child welfare workflows for Intake, Case Management, Resource & Financial Management, Courts, Eligibility, Resource Family Approval (RFA), Reporting and Analytics and CARES Administration. V2 will extend V1 to provide advanced Analytics, Provider Management, Financial Management and CARES Administration capabilities. V2 will also include all CCWIS-mandatory data exchanges. V1 development is planned to be complete and implemented in by counties in the Summer of 2026.

Prior to the switch to platform development, updates were pushed directly to production, and workers could use the system in their “real” day to day work. As we know this posed several challenges. Going forward, in development on the platform these updates will be pushed to a Sandbox environment, so workers can explore, test and provide feedback throughout the process.

Platform as a service (PaaS) is a complete development and deployment environment in the cloud that will provide CWDS with a configurable application and other development tools that will simplify and accelerate our development of CARES. As a service, the platform vendor will take care of the infrastructure needed to maintain and operate CARES. That infrastructure includes computing capabilities, security, storage, disaster recovery etc. CWDS is then able to concentrate on developing the CARES application, interfaces and analytics capabilities.

"Yes, both Microsoft Dynamics and Salesforce have experience working with a variety of entities requiring large scale applications including government services, financial services, health care, retail, communications, consumer goods, and travel hospitality.

Clients of both companies include child welfare in the states of Ohio, Arizona, Idaho, Illinois, Delaware, and Connecticut. In addition, they have worked with Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Department of Transportation, Homeland Security, Department of Defense, Department of Treasury and Sanford Health, to name but a few. "

Yes. All activities involving county participation will be counted.

There is no need to submit information regarding hours worked before September 1, 2021.

It is the responsibility of the county to decide how they will submit the requested data and who will report it. Please ensure that all time (hour increments only) spent conducting work on the CWS-CARES Project is recorded, so that future county participation funding is maximized.

Yes. Both statewide and county forms will be included in the new system. Statewide and county forms will come from the repository.

The CALS Dashboard will contain a landing page with the caseload information and will be geared toward the end user's goal. There will also be a section that includes alerts and notifications for example deadlines, reports due, important priorities and etc.