16501.5. (Amended by Stats. 2022, Ch. 573, Sec. 23.)

(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 that inhibit the effective provision of services to children and families by applying current technology to the systems that 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 database 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 that 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.

(e) (1) Notwithstanding the rulemaking provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act (Chapter 3.5 (commencing with Section 11340) of Part 1 of Division 3 of Title 2 of the Government Code), the department may implement and administer this section through all-county letters or similar instructions, which shall have the same force and effect as regulations, until final regulations are adopted.

(2) To ensure transparent and consistent communication, the department shall include an update on the development of regulations in the legislative updates associated with the quarterly forums convened pursuant to Section 16501.9. By October 1, 2024, the department shall provide a formal update on the status of the development of regulations to the Legislature in accordance with Section 9795 of the Government Code.

(3) The department shall adopt final regulations no later than 24 months after the complete replacement for the statewide child welfare information system is implemented statewide.