Document iconImproving Child Welfare: Initial Assessment Improvement Project

The Initial Assessment Improvement Project (IAIP) has two primary goals:

  1. Supporting child protective services (CPS) professionals by improving and streamlining the Initial Assessment (IA) process and documentation; 

  2. and supporting families through practices that center them in the IA process.

Improvements to the IA were identified through an analysis of eWiSACWIS and standards and by engaging with the CPS workforce and other community and system partners through a standardized Business Process Re-engineering method. With the June 2024 eWiSACWIS release, all of that work will come to fruition as the Division of Safety and Permanence launches a new and improved IA workflow in eWiSACWIS. This will include:

  • Reorganizing and streamlining the IA tabs;

  • Removing redundancies from the IA template;

  • Adding a Safety Tab that prefills from the Safety Assessment and Plan;

  • Adding a narrative box to document collaborative efforts with tribes, and another to record information about parents who are not in the household;

  • and providing guidance on answering questions that can be immediately accessed through detail flairs.

 

The CPS Access and Initial Assessment Standards will also be updated in June 2024 to reflect the practice changes accompanying the improved eWiSACWIS documentation workflow and that support important updates to best practices in the field. CPS professionals can look forward to an improved statewide IA process that:

  • Elevates family voice;

  • Emphasizes parent and caretaker engagement;

  • Provides families with helpful information to understand CPS and the IA process;

  • and aims to connect families to needed services and supports as early as possible.

     

Stay tuned for more information early next year, including a training schedule. Trainings and other materials will be provided in advance of the release to ensure workers and supervisors will be equipped to take advantage of these improvements from day one!

After June, priorities to support the workforce will shift to:

  • Providing additional guidance on best practice for collaborating with tribes when a child is a tribal member or potential member.

  • Continuing to reduce the administrative burden on the IA workforce. Given that more than 85% of IAs close at the end of the initial assessment, the team will explore further opportunities to cut down on paperwork, while attending to child safety and connecting families to needed services.