**STATE OF WYOMING**

**DEPARTMENT OF FAMILY SERVICES**

> ***Dave Freudenthal, Governor***

![](media/image2.png){width="3.0in" height="0.9in"} ***Tony Lewis,
Director***

**[Hathaway Building, 2300 Capitol Avenue, Cheyenne, WY 82002-0490
(307)777-7561]{.smallcaps}**

**[fax (307)777-7747]{.smallcaps}**

> March 4, 2008

Ms. Kathleen McHugh

Administration for Children and Families

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

Regarding: 45 CFR Part 1355

1250 Maryland Avenue SW, Suite 800

Washington, D.C. 20024

REF: TL-08-027

RE: **45 CFR Part 1355, Adoption Foster Care Analysis and Reporting
System**

Dear Ms. McHugh:

The State of Wyoming, Department of Family Services respectfully submits
this comment letter regarding the Notice of Proposed Rule Making with
Comment Period on the *Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting
System,* published in the *Federal Register* on January 11, 2008 (*73 FR
2082*) for the Administration for Children and Family Services of the
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Wyoming recognizes ACF's desire for more reliable longitudinal data for
the child welfare system. However, the Wyoming Department of Family
Services has concerns that this regulation places a significant burden
on the state without providing additional funding and support.

The State of Wyoming has identified areas of concern regarding
provisions of this NPRM, including:

-   the proposed changes require much more detailed data to be gathered.
    Extensive changes to Wyoming Children's Assistance and Protection
    System (WYCAPS) would be required;

-   extensive time increase for field social workers to track down and
    maintain additional data elements;

-   increasing population, requiring tracking of all elements across all
    children will greatly increase data input time and training required
    to do the input;

-   family record number: Tracking by family number as a single entity
    is not possible for any length of time because of the dynamics of
    'family,' divorce, marriage, death, adoption, birth, etc.;

-   languages used: List will be too large and unmanageable;

-   data on all placements regardless of direct responsibility of the
    Department of Family Services will mean changing security (allowing
    private agencies to input their own data in the SACWIS system) an
    increase of interfaces between other agencies and an increase of
    paperwork between agencies to track data elements;

-   increased expense (drug tests, mental health exams, medical
    exams...), increased time required to redo all screening and
    testing;

-   the reduction of the state data reporting window from 45 to 15 days;

-   the large amount of data that states are required to submit;

-   significantly expanded and newly required data elements;

-   the proposed error rates;

-   the proposed penalties; and

-   the huge impact and cost to Wyoming.

We appreciate the opportunity to provide you with the following
comments:

**Provisions of the Proposed Rule**

**[1355.40 Scope of the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting
Systems.]{.underline}**

The NPRM definition for out-of-home care would require the state to
report on children in living arrangements which are not part of the
current reporting requirements. The issues stemming from the proposed
rule are described below.

**[1355.41 Reporting Populations.]{.underline}**

The proposed AFCARS rule requires reporting to include children "under
the placement and care responsibility of the State agency." This new
definition increases the number of placement settings to be included in
the submission, some of which may be outside the control of the foster
care agency. The proposal includes children under the placement and care
of the child welfare agency who are in juvenile justice and other non
IV-E reimbursable placements, such as psychiatric treatment facilities
and detention centers.

The NPRM proposes changing the definition of when to stop reporting a
child in AFCARS. In this proposal, children who go home on trial
discharge would no longer be reported to AFCARS. The theory is that the
children, while possibly still under supervision of the agency, are no
longer fully in the care of the state agency. The change in definition
may have a significant effect on the national standards related to
length of stay in foster care as well as re-entry rates. The state feels
strongly that trial home visits should continue to be reported.

**[1355.42 Data Reporting Requirements.]{.underline}**

The NPRM proposes two (2) six-month reporting periods, consistent with
the current AFCARS regulations; the State of Wyoming supports continuing
this procedure.

The NPRM also proposes that the state agency submit data files within 15
days of the end of the report period, a reduction from the current
45-day window. Wyoming is a state administered system and will be
burdened with allocating resources to ensure the quality of the data and
submitting it within 15 days after end of the reporting period. The
elements proposed in the rule would create a very large file, Wyoming
would need additional time to process, analyze, and clean data before it
is submitted. We recommend the 45-day period be allowed prior to the
submission of the data.

Reporting additional data elements for children in foster care prior to
the finalization of the rule would be an additional burden. Wyoming is
currently under an AFCARS Improvement Plan (AIP) that has been approved
and is in place. Changes may disrupt that plan causing the State of
Wyoming to be out of compliance with our current AIP.

**[1355.43 Out-of-Home Care Data File Elements.]{.underline}**

The out-of-home care data file proposed in this NPRM includes a vast
array of additional data and research elements. Although longitudinal
data collection is important, it is unclear how many of the proposed
elements would ensure positive outcomes and would represent quality
data.

The magnitude of these new elements would overwhelm social workers and
would probably lead to inaccurate data collection. Wyoming is concerned
about the new elements and the differential definitions applied between
AFCARS and the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System.

The new elements would move Wyoming Children's Assistance and Protection
System (WYCAPS) from a case management system to a data collection
system, to move from collecting narrative information to data fields
would be a significant endeavor for Wyoming. The proposed elements would
require Wyoming Department of Family Services to rewrite policies,
procedures and possibly require changes in the law to require reviews on
children in detention facilities. It would be difficult to collect some
of the data elements without good definitions of the element, for
example following a single family number over time and placements for a
child. Family structures are dynamic, so assigning a single number to
different configurations of a family would not provide reliable data.

The NPRM states that "...having this information will be a greater
benefit to ACF and the States than the relatively low burden on
caseworkers in collecting the data." The NPRM also states that the new
elements regarding education are, "...relatively simple for a State
agency to collect and report." We contest the accuracy of the
statements. It is believed that the new elements represent an onerous
burden to staff, systems, and funding resources. The proposed regulation
would have a significant financial impact as the state would be required
to restructure the information systems, training procedures, and data
collection policies for compliance without allowing an implementation
timeframe, plan, or funding to support the actions. This section
includes research questions that are not necessary for the benefit of
longitudinal data; the proposed data collection poses more challenges
than benefits.

**[1355.44 Adoption Assistance and Guardianship Subsidy Data File
Elements.]{.underline}**

Wyoming does not support the imposition of penalties based upon the
second data file on adoption assistance and guardianship. It seems
unnecessary to submit a file containing information on every child for
the period that they are in subsidized guardianship, which might be as
long as 20 years for children with special needs. In addition, this
reporting could be considered contrary to Public Law 101 regarding the
state's oversight for adoptive family.

There is no clarification regarding what candidates should be included
in the file. The NPRM is not clear about the requirements for which
children should be included from other countries and that are involved
in private adoptions. The proposed changes would require significant
state-level policy modifications. The changes may also lead to problems
with federal policies on adoption assistance by creating different sets
of standards.

**[1355.45 Compliance.]{.underline}**

The NPRM states that data files will be subject to evaluation in
compliance, errors, missing data, invalid data, internally inconsistent
data, cross-filing errors and timeliness. ACF proposes that the
demographic data collected and submitted be 100 percent accurate. This
requirement is impossible to meet. Having this unrealistic requirement
may lead social workers to enter inaccurate data in order to ensure that
there is no missing data. The new requirements should be implemented in
phases in order to allow the state to succeed. The change in policy,
procedure, and rule would require tremendous effort and lead to
difficulty in retaining social workers as they would be spending a
significant portion of the time entering data at the expense of children
and families who require services.

**[1355.46 Penalties.]{.underline}**

According to the NPRM, strict penalties would go into effect at the time
of the final regulation; this does not allow flexibility to completely
overhaul their current AFCARS and SACWIS systems. The estimated time to
completely rewrite the business rules for the WYCAPS, change policies,
train the field staff is unknown, compliance during this period would be
impossible. Wyoming does not support the penalties as proposed in the
rule. A clear implementation plan needs to be developed before the
proposed rule goes into effect.

The proposed penalty structure must be reconfigured; the current
structure imposes the same penalty on a state that has one error as that
of a state with several errors. This is not a system that motivates
improvement as the proposed penalty remains the same regardless of the
magnitude of

errors. Penalties should be commensurate with the degree of errors to
allow incremental improvements and an incentive program should be
considered. ACF states that the "law requires that we assure that the
data submitted to us is reliable and consistent and authorizes us to
utilize appropriate requirements and incentives to ensure that the
system functions reliably." According to this statement, there is
flexibility for ACF to alter the penalty structure and implement an
incentive policy.

The data collection process fails to consider factors which would impact
the services provided to children and families by the social workers.
There are national organizations such as Casey Family Programs that can
assist in development of an implementation plan which would be sensitive
to the needs of the states.

**[Fiscal Impact.]{.underline}**

Without clear definitions and timelines, it would be impossible for
Wyoming to assess the fiscal impact of the changes. Regardless of the
cost estimate of this proposed regulation, it is an enormous burden on
the State of Wyoming.

Wyoming adds its voice to the other states and professional
organizations, such as the Child Welfare League of America, who are also
expressing the above concerns.

Sincerely,

Tony Lewis

Director

TL/ZS/slh