1. CCWIS Webinar Data Quality (Part 1): Multiple PIDs May 22, Comprehensive Child Welfare Information System
Strengthening CONNECTIONS for caseworkers, children, and families
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This is our 2nd CCWIS Webinar, focused on Data Quality. In planning discussions, there were several topics to discuss, but we felt that a full hour talking about the multiple PID issue was needed. We will continue with other data quality topics at the 6/26 webinar.
Format for today: We have panelists; everyone else is muted because it is such a large group. Please submit any questions via Chat in your webex window. We are going to try some “poll” questions. We will stop for Q&A periodically. Feel free to submit questions as we go.

2. Panelists OCFS CCWIS OCFS Child Welfare/SPPD: ITS LDSS:
Voluntary Agency:
Team:
CONNECTIONS:
Christopher Anderson (Erie)
Wanda Medina (Graham Windham)
Sandra Carrk
Jason DeSantis
Megan Scullin
Meneek Jones
Vajeera Dorabawila
Connie Fedorwich
Jeanette Pratko (Broome)
Melissa McMahon (GA Child and Family Services)
Shawntell Mills-Sanchez
Linda Gorthy
Don Butler
Devo Olufunmilayo
Lori Lehner
Jennifer Redman
John Clinton

3. Agenda Multiple PIDs – Why does it matter? 2-Pronged Approach
When and Where are Multiple PIDs created?
How can we reduce creation of Multiple PIDs?
How can we clean up the back log?
Next Steps

4. Multiple PIDs – Why does it matter?
#1 Health and Safety – A child could be at risk if CPS worker is not aware of all history
SCR Checks - Individuals could gain employment when they shouldn’t (and vice versa)
Workers do not have reliable historical info (all cases)
Data Exchanges
Federal Reporting, Casework Contacts
CCWIS data quality requirement
Sandra - As we reviewed in last month’s CCWIS Overview webinar, CCWIS requires us to focus on Data Quality: complete, accurate, timely; consistently and uniformly collected; support child welfare policies, goals, and practices; not be created by default or inappropriately assigned. We must regularly monitor CCWIS data quality; alert staff to collect/update data; prevent the need to re-enter data; and provide reports of continuing or unresolved data quality problems. Biennial reviews will measure and report on data quality. Annual Data Quality Plan must address these items.
Important that we work on Multiple PID issue because (a) good quality data promotes good case practice; and (b) if we can’t uniquely identify people, our data exchanges will be unreliable – we will not know if we are matching the right people with the right histories across systems.
Jason - Caseworkers may not realize how important it is to uniquely identify people in the system because multiple PIDS doesn’t impact their day to day casework. This slide lists some of the impacts. SCR checks: An individual not connected to their history could gain employment when they should not. On the flip side: incorrectly relating/merging PIDS could cause a person to be wrongly indicated and impact their ability to obtain employment
Vajeera - Data exchanges are already impacted, as is federal reporting. The feds tell us every year that we need to clean up the multiple PID issue on our NCANDS report. Also in DW reports, multiple PIDS result in not picking up the correct casework contacts for federal reporting.
John – Casework contacts – discuss impact
Sandra – anything else?

5. 2-Pronged Approach 1 – Data clean up (back log)
There is excellent data available in the Multiple PID reports in CONNECTIONS. Implementation staff can assist.
2 – Prevention going forward
Sandra - How to resolve the issue?
Linda - multiple PID reports – talk about current report and request process. What would be easier?
Vajeera - What about DW reports?
Sandra – Re: prevention, we will discuss some ideas on the upcoming slides

6. When and Where are Multiple PIDs created?
Great majority of PIDs originate at the SCR
Callers may not have complete or accurate name, DOB, address info
Crucial Step: CPS Investigation
CPS (or FAR) worker must update name, DOB, and address info
Do Person Search at this stage to relate/merge PIDs as appropriate
Confusion
Preventive cases; people with multiple roles
Often - starts with the SCR – don’t have enough information to relate to existing individual/PID
Also have heard that for Preventive walk-in cases and cases that start in Special Investigation unit and move to Preventive (this may be only ACS) – staff do not necessarily make the effort to relate to existing PIDs.
Persons with multiple roles in the system – confusion on whether to relate or not (ie foster parents who are also emergency parents to other foster homes, or foster parents who were part of the home composition that had CPS involvement/INV stage)
There is no reason to have multiple PIDs for different types of cases (like OSI or Preventive) or for a person’s changing roles in the system (Foster parent in a services case vs. alleged subject parent in a CPS case).
Adoption Subsidy – these should NOT be considered multiple PIDS; these children get a new CIN and PID before they are adopted. (can we remove from report?)
Where else?
Are there situations where a worker knows a multiple PID is being or has been created but does not have rights/permissions to relate or merge? Counties need to have a process to inform the correct person/unit and have it fixed in a timely manner
Not everyone should have the ability to merge/unmerge; extreme care and caution must be taken.
Request Q&A feedback: Any other places you can think of where multiple PIDS result?

7. How can we reduce creation of Multiple PIDs?
Automation
Messaging to staff/Policies
Training
Preserved staff time to work on unique PIDs (resolving Multiple PIDs, unmerging errors)
What else?
Going forward:
Automation – system can require worker to do a person search any time a person with a V or U code has changes to their Name or DOB in the INV or FAR stages. (New CONNX Change request was submitted in April). It may not seem crucial to the CPS workers to do this – but the impacts when not done are far and wide.
Any other ideas where the system could help? What about automatically relating people with exact matches? (weight benefits vs # of times it could be wrong?) OR Could be an automatic alert in the system when 2 or more identifying indicators are the same; for example, same name and age, or address match
When a person search is done, if there is a likely match but it is not selected, could the system require the user to acknowledge and either say they are still looking further into it, or confirm it’s not the same person (if not selected)? (These could then be eliminated from the multiple PID report.)
CONNX gets demographic info from WMS; do workers know how to change the system of record (WMS) for name or address changes?
Messaging – do staff understand the importance and have needed guidance/policies/training?
Policies - Is direction provided to not relate in certain cases (ie Preventive walk-ins)? CIN, child health history, and foster parent’s clearance information are connected to the PID and can be impacted by merging PIDS.
Is there confusion between PID merges and case merges?
Megan – Yes. It’s important to differentiate between case merges and PID merges – they are different. PID merges do not impact cases or cause case merges. All cases that a PID was in will pull into the combined case history for the single, distinct PID you choose to go forward after a PID merge, but none of those cases are merged together – they remain as is. When you merge PIDs, you don’t lose any information. If PID A has Cases 1, 2, and 3, and PID B has Cases 4 and 5, when you merge these two PIDs together, the case history under the single PID will display Cases 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.
Jason – Training - CONNECTIONS training for new SCR staff increased from 2 days to 4 days. The extra days are devoted for teaching staff how to do thorough person searches in CONNECTIONS.
Training for all users is available on Adding and Relating people; webex version coming soon.
Preserved staff time – discuss more on next slide
Q&A feedback: Do you have any other ideas on ways we can reduce creation of Multiple PIDs? Particularly regarding automation within CONNX?

8. How can we clean up the back log?
Suggestion: Multiple PID Specialists who review statewide reports
Suggestion: Training coupled with full-day workshop (work through actual Multiple PID reports)
What else?
Do any counties want to share any best practices?
Jeanette – Broome has a dedicated eligibility worker who has attention to detail and conscientiously works the MPR report each month. When she hits possible matches that she can’t confirm, she will ask her implementation specialist to do further research (closed cross-county cases usually).
Chris – Erie has 3 specialists that work on this. (elaborate)
Q&A Feedback – any other county that would like to share best practices?
Suggestion From Genesee county (Brenda Alvut): What about creating “Multiple PID Specialists” within the LDSS agencies?  These “specialists” would receive state-wide reports, not just the ones dealing with their agency.  If we do not want to give someone “state-wide” responsibility, then maybe we could have a LDSS person responsible for their region.
Megan - This “team” would be responsible for cleaning up the PIDs.  We would know who the other team members are and if I had a case here and there was another case in Cayuga County that I was trying to link together, I could reach out to that “specialist” to see if we could make a determination that the person is in fact the same person.  There would be an understanding that they’ll engage in open communication with their peers in other district offices to sort out any questions they may have with multiple PIDs with cross-district history.
Q - Would this need to be done by staff who are very familiar with the families?
Megan - In order to (confidently) merge multiple PIDs, one would need familiarity with their case history, but anyone at the district is capable of diving into a closed case file in CONNECTIONS and reading and understanding the composition, it doesn’t need to be the person who actually worked with the family. There’s no impact to case merge – you’d be merging PIDs, not cases. All cases that a PID was in will pull into the combined case history for the single, distinct PID you choose to go forward after a PID merge, but none of those cases are merged together – they remain as is.
Limiting this role to Specialists/experts is helpful because of the caution that needs to be taken. This could also help with the volume of “unmerges” needed, which can require many hours of manual resolution.
Suggestion to hold training/tech assistance sessions/workshops at the training center. Staff from all counties would come in for 1 day for adding/relating new persons training, and spend the day working through their Multiple PID report, with T/A in the room for the day.
Is the Adding/Relating New Persons training required for staff in certain roles? (should it be?)
Q&A Feedback: any other ideas on how to clean up the back log?

9. Next Steps If agreed to:
Recruit/develop list of county Multiple PID Specialists
Distribute statewide or regional reports – new process needed?
Report modifications needed?
Schedule training/technical assistance workshops
What else?

10. ? ?
Q & A ? ? ? ?
If time - Any questions on anything we haven’t covered?

11. Ideas for future Webinar Topics
Data Quality (Part 2)
Consistent/uniform data collection is required. Discuss “work arounds,” supervisory approvals, alerts/to do’s, duplicate data entry, data quality measures
Dashboard landing page
What information do you want at your fingertips when you open the system?
Stages with missing AFCARS info; list of placed youth; alerts?
CONNECTIONS Functionality
Review tentative build schedule
How can the system better support work processes?
Areas noted in local system surveys for potential inclusion in CONNECTIONS
Mobility
What functions would be most helpful in the field?
Progress Notes
Data Exchanges
Predictive Analytics

12. Thank you! Next monthly CCWIS Webinar: June 26th 11am-12pm
Let us know via
If you have any other ideas around resolving Multiple PIDs
If you’d like to be a panelist on the Data Quality Part 2 webinar
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CCWIS
Strengthening CONNECTIONS for caseworkers, children, and families