ILLINOIS DEPARTMENT OF CHILDREN AND FAMILY SERVICES JESS McDONALD, DIRECTOR
CWAC/POS SACWIS Advisory Committee
May 4, 1999 Meeting Minutes
Members in Attendance
Ken Dee, CHASI
Sam Traylor, DCFS SACWIS
Kevin Singletary, CSS � Peoria
Steve Bradshaw, DCFS/POS Liaison
Priscilla Parker, LCFS
Dennis Egolf, SACWIS (telephone)
Jim Erickson, New Life Social Services
Tom Teague, DCFS
Sue Grady, Youth Svc. Bureau, IL Valley
Foster Centola, DCFS
George Thibeault, Catholic Charities
Rommel Sangalang, CCA
Zack Schrantz, Uhlich
Jan Schoening, CCA
Lory Sandberg, LSSI
Jess McDonald, DCFS (11:10-12:05)
Greg Kurth, Central Baptist
Don Vacca, DCFS
Members Absent
Richard Calica, Juvenile Protection Assoc.
Frances Barnes, VOA
Bishop Aaron Holmes, Reaching the Mark
Steven Minter, DCFS
Deverrick Crawford, Lakeside Comm. Cmt
Carol Winn, Ada S. McKinley
Rebecca Cook, IARF
Darlene Sweeney, Allendale
Valerie Riley, Center for Hew Horizons
Jan Schoening convened the meeting at approximately 10:50 a.m.
Due to a schedule conflict for Don Vacca, the order of the agenda was rearranged.
Best Practices Initiative Don Vacca, Best Practice/SACWIS Engagement Manager, attended the meeting to explain and discuss the status of the Best Practices Initiative. In response to a request from the Private Agency Liaison, Don brought drafts of the various Best Practices documents including the Executive Summary, Chapter 1 (an introduction), Intact Family Services, and Permanency. Some wording may change and specific fieldwork processes added as a result of the Expert Panel (explained below) review or field-testing; for example, an event driven chart for concurrent planning is being developed to add to the Permanency document. However, Don believes the essential elements of the drafts will not change.
Note that this packet does not contain the Investigations best practices material; this material is currently undergoing intensive review by the Expert Panel with a process being added for each type of allegation. This piece of the Best Practice Initiative is the most critical for Phase I of SACWIS design.
Don explained the history of the Best Practices Initiative as a process that started about one year ago. There were three initial areas to be addressed:
| The Director's instruction that SACWIS would be developed in response to the needs of best practice. The Best Practices Initiative will drive the development of SACWIS, technology must respect the practice;
| Policy and Procedures don't tell workers the details of how to do the work; and,
| There were 49 internal draft procedures circulating; these were put on hold and integrated into the Best Practices Initiative as appropriate.
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Groups of DCFS staff were formed: investigations, intact families, and permanency, and assessment and service planning. The time commitment was originally planned for 50% for about 6 months; it actually resulted in about a 9-month time commitment. During the first couple of months the groups reviewed the 49 internal drafts, utilizing national experts for input on several issues. They also utilized a consultant to research best practice work in other states. The groups functioned independently of each other in the development of its respective best practice documents drafts and continued to work on the documents past their summer target date. The drafts concluded "phase 1" of the Best Practices Initiative.
Phase 2 began recently with the formation of an "Expert Panel" chaired by Richard Calica (a member of the SACWIS Advisory Committee). The panel will review the BP materials and suggest edits and refinements. Phase 2 activities will also include consultation with national experts for review and comments, and keeping the information current and up-to-date. The membership of the Expert Panel will change as its focus of review changes, i.e. the current membership is targeted toward review of the investigations documents, and future membership will be experts in the areas then under review. Mr. Calica is expected to chair the Expert Panel throughout its functional life.
Phase 2 also emphasizes the relationship of the Best Practices Initiative with training, quality assurance and improvement, and with the SACWIS project. There is work being done with the Department's university partners to develop training curriculum based on the Best Practices Initiative. The SACWIS functional team areas will be heavily staffed with people who had direct involvement in the Best Practices Initiative. This will help insure that the best practice requirements are supported by the SACWIS application, i.e. the standardized practices, resulting from the Best Practices Initiative, will be the business requirements for the SACWIS design and development.
A "decision tree" process is being developed for the investigations piece of Best Practices; a similar process is being considered for the permanency section, also. According to statements by Director McDonald, Best Practices will define parameters within which to make decisions. Certain things are uniform, in Illinois child welfare work, such as baseline ways to do things and especially the timeframes required for certain events in the life of a case. These timeframes convert into workload requirements (preliminary assessment indicates a caseload of 16-17) and makes a stronger case for adjusting the caseload levels. Conversely, the current system of "individual practice" doesn't provide sufficient caseload statistics. The goal is to reduce reporting burdens on the worker to free up time for more casework. It should be noted that the "proscriptive" nature of the Best Practices documents has received positive responses.
AMS has been told that the Department will complete the workflow analysis, which translates into the design requirements. Technology must respect the practice.
The initial implementation sites for the Best Practices Initiative have not yet been decided. POS agencies can volunteer to participate in this process. Jan Schoening asked about timeframes for the Best Practices Initiative and its relationship to SACWIS. The first part of the SACWIS design will be in the area of investigations/CANTS; there is more detail needed from best practices on the permanency and planning components but that part of the SACWIS design is far enough away to not be impacted by this process.
The Director and Don Vacca responded to several questions from committee members including forms reduction and integration of Best Practices Initiative and SACWIS. The Department is trying to eliminate un-used forms and is expecting SACWIS to eliminate many forms by virtue of the on-line case file feature. The "old" system of implementing a new requirement often "institutionalized" an item by placing a new form on top of an existing form/process, and requiring both. The Best Practices Initiative/SACWIS process will be different in that Best Practices will define the events and decisions that need to occur and the computer application will support these items; as the practice requirements change, so will the business requirements of SACWIS.
The Director stated that it is the intent to train POS staff on the Best Practices expectations. This should occur prior to SACWIS since SACWIS is only a subset of the Best Practices Initiative. Don Vacca expressed his opinion that all Best Practice documents will be completed by fall, 2000.
The Director is hoping to receive POS staffing suggestions from Ron Moorman, CCA. This may not occur until after the CCA's March board meeting.
Minutes of January 11, 2000 meeting � The minutes were approved by acclamation.
SACWIS Project Management
Update on SACWIS Project
| STAFFING: Sam passed out copies of the SACWIS organizational chart. This abbreviated chart shows the project management including the functional team leaders. Foster Centola will manage the functional teams. Foster explained the choices made
for the functional team leaders, and that there will be "core team" members added to each team. Team leaders and core team members will be full-time on the SACWIS project. The private agencies will have representation on the four
functional teams plus the change management/training team. Including the Private Agency Liaison, this raises the total number of full-time POS staff to six. POS staff will also be included in the area of Subject Matter Experts (SME's). SME's
will be brought into the project on an as-needed basis as specific aspects of the application are being developed.
Sam explained there are plans to have two SACWIS sites, one in the Chicago area and one in Springfield. The Chicago site is expected to have 10-15 people. There should be video conferencing and E-room capabilities linking the two sites. Staff will be full-time, committed until project termination (projected to be December 2003). Sam further explained the staffing from ISD, team relationships and issues with DCFS bargaining unit staff. Some questions on staffing arose late in the meeting. How will DCFS determine salaries to the POS/SACWIS staff? Foster noted that the DCFS staff joined the project at their current salaries. What will happen to the Assistant Liaison position currently being advertised? Sam noted that this position evolved into the proposed full-time positions. There was some discussion on the value of having a technical assistant dedicated to the concerns of the private agencies. Steve and Sam will make a comparison of the advertised job with the positions in the QA, AMS and Getronics contracts. George asked Jan if there was any response from Ron Moorman on the staffing issue; Jan responded only that it is recognized as a significant time commitment. Don Vacca stated that the Director is looking to the CCA (Ron Moorman) for the POS staff. There was also a question about how the state intends to pay the POS staff, by contract with their employing agency, or by direct contract with the person. Don Vacca explained that he would seek an answer to this question from the Director. Application Vendor Selection: Sam reported that DCFS is waiting on federal ACF approval of the application vendor contract. DCFS is also submitting the IAPD (implementation advanced planning document) for approval. An in-person meeting with
ACF is being planned for later in March to discuss both the IAPD and the AMS contract. Sam continues to project April 3rd as the start date of the application vendor.
| QA RFP � Progress continues on the selection of the QA vendor. A recommendation has been made to CMS; an April start date is expected.
| Web Site and Templates � The DCFS Intranet site is waiting for internal approval; this site will be accessible to anyone on the SACWIS network. The DCFS Internet site is scheduled for a revision. In response to a question, Sam will
need to check with the communications office about a process for outside agencies to post information to the DCFS web site. There was also a question on linking the SACWIS site with the CCA site.
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Ron Moorman's letter had the following stipulation to accepting the state's decision to directly purchase the equipment for the POS sites:
| Only one PC on a worker's desktop; must be able to log onto the agency's network from the same PC that is used for SACWIS.
| The ability to connect non-required SACWIS users to the SACWIS network (POS agencies would fund the equipment for this); examples given were HR staff, finance staff, and upper management staff.
| The one-way data bridge from SACWIS to the private agencies (some members noted the desire to have a two-way bridge but acknowledged the Department has made it clear that this will be a one-way bridge).
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Dennis Egolf responded to a question on the PC's to worker ratio; was this based on contracted caseloads or on actual caseloads (independent living and specialized foster care caseloads are different from regular foster care)? The ratio of PC's-to-caseload is based on actual caseload data, not contracted caseload numbers.
Sam noted that the DCFS funding proposal resolves many of the federal issues. The integration concepts bring some federal issues back, such as training, security, support, and matching federal dollars. It was acknowledged that these are not all federal issues, but are all issues that affect the SACWIS project. Dennis reported that the federal match is either 34-35% or about 49% depending on the method chosen for procuring the POS equipment. Greg Kurth expressed the committee's commitment to do what's necessary to achieve the greatest amount of federal match.
Sam distributed a timeline showing the state's purchase of equipment option. Site addresses and floor plans will be needed for each location in which equipment is to be installed. What are some of the options for assessing the site locations? Sam will put the timelines for the Best Practices Initiative, rate increase method of POS equipment procurement, and the Federal issues dependencies on the timeline for a future handout.
There was a question on differences between the rate increase methodology and the state's purchase of the POS equipment. The rate of federal matching is different, 34% compared to 49%, and, support of the many various kinds and types of equipment would be significantly more difficult compared to supporting one type of equipment using a single image (supported under an existing contract).
POS Data Group � The Data Group continues to be concerned over the lack of POS involvement in the development of the Best Practices Initiative documents. Copies of the Best Practices Initiative documents were provided for the members of this group.
Other Issues � Steve Bradshaw distributed The Communication Plan draft. During the ensuing discussion it was determined that the plan needs to accommodate related communication issues from all facets of the Best Practices Initiative and the SACWIS project. There needs to be a system of feedback loops to keep the SACWIS Advisory Committee informed of progress and issues in all areas related to SACWIS. It was pointed out that the application vendor and the QA vendor also have communications requirements and responsibilities back to the POS agencies. How do we insure the POS agencies can and will communicate back? Steve suggested a FAQ (frequently asked questions) list be developed during the planned on-site visits. There could also be handouts distributed at the various regional meetings to keep SACWIS on the minds of the agencies.
The communications plan will be modified to include these ideas.
Budget � Sue asked about the comparison of SACWIS budgeted money vs. actual spent. She is seeking an understanding of the overall amount of SACWIS money spent vs. the amount to be allocated to the POS agencies. Sam responded only that there was no money in the FY 2001 budget for equipment or for a rate increase.
Next Meeting � Scheduled for April 4th at LCFS in River Forest.
Adjournment � The meeting adjourned at approximately 2:30 p.m.[foot.htm]