(a) In order to protect children and effectively administer and evaluate California’s Child Welfare Services and Foster Care programs, the department shall implement a single statewide Child Welfare Services Case Management System no later than July 1, 1993.
(b) It is the intent of the Legislature in developing and implementing a statewide Child Welfare Services Case Management System to minimize the administrative and systems barriers which inhibit the effective provision of services to children and families by applying current technology to the systems which support the provision and management of child welfare services. Therefore, it is the intent of the Legislature that the Child Welfare Services Case Management System achieve all of the following:
(1) Provide child welfare services workers with immediate access to child and family specific information in order to make appropriate and expeditious case decisions.
(2) Provide child welfare services workers with the case management information needed to effectively and efficiently manage their caseloads and take appropriate and timely case management actions.
(3) Provide state and county child welfare services management with the information needed to monitor and evaluate the accomplishment of child welfare services tasks and goals.
(4) Provide all child welfare services agencies with a common data base and definition of information from which to evaluate the child welfare services programs in terms of the following:
(A) Effectiveness in meeting statutory and regulatory mandates, goals, and objectives of the programs.
(B) Effectiveness in meeting the needs of the families and children serviced by the program.
(C) Projecting and planning for the future needs of the families and children served by the program.
(5) Meeting federal statistical reporting requirements with a minimum of duplication of effort.
(6) Consolidate the collection and reporting of information for those programs which are closely related to child welfare services, including foster care and emergency assistance.
(7) Utilize the child welfare services functionality defined in current and planned automated systems as the foundation for the development of the technical requirements for the Child Welfare Services Case Management System.
(c) It is the intent of the Legislature that the Child Welfare Services Case Management System shall provide the required comprehensive and detailed individual county data needed by the department to implement and monitor the performance standards system.
(Amended by Stats. 2012, Ch. 35, Sec. 128. (SB 1013) Effective June 27, 2012.)