TFACTS
Tennessee's Statewide Automated Child Welfare Information System (TFACTS)
TFACTS is the name for Tennessee's Statewide Automated Child Welfare Information System. TFACTS stands for Tennessee Family and Child Tracking System. TFACTS will be replacing TNKIDS as well as several other DCS legacy systems. The federal government is helping fund such a system in hopes it provides unified case records to support child welfare practices. A Statewide Automated Child Welfare Information System is actually referred to by the acronym SACWIS. Federal website
Because the federal government is helping to fund a SACWIS for Tennessee, the state must adhere to the Federal instructions in regards to private providers and their use of the system.
Tennessee will be using a transfer of a statewide information system that implementation vendor, Dynamics Research Corporation (DRC), has developed and is in the process of implementing in the State of Ohio. Instead of starting from scratch with all brand new development, TN will be able to modify and add to existing functionality of Ohio’s statewide system. The contract with DRC was signed April of last year and soon after the initial phases for TFACTS began.
The initial phases for the TN SACWIS project include:
The Rapid Requirements Development (RRD) phase, involved state and vendor analyst staff along with Subject Matter Experts (the real users of the system) reviewing and validating all of the baseline system’s requirements, adding necessary details to those requirements to make sure that the functionality and business process are captured. Business use cases were developed during this stage to describe the business process that is performed by the users to achieve their goals. This phase ran May – July of 2008.
The JAD (Joint Application Design) phase of the project involved teams comprised of the same Subject Matter Experts, state and vendor analyst staff meet twice a week to insure that each business use case and its functional requirements are ready for design. System screen designs are developed to demonstrate how users interact with the system to achieve their goals. This phase ran August of 2008 – March of 2009.
Due to the time demands of these meetings, providers were unable to keep representation frequent. Thus, the TFACTS coordinator position was created in order to provide a voice for the providers in the TFACTS design and implementation process. The six teams consisted of the following topics and corresponding intended business areas:
Team 1: Intake/Investigation Management
CPS Central Intake, General Intake (case creation), CPS Investigation, Assessment (Multiple Response), Special Investigation, Due Process.
Team 2: Case Management
In-home/Out of Home Services, Relative Caregiver/Kinship Care, Interdependent Living, Case Planning/On-Going, Assessment
Team 3: Court & Case Management
Juvenile Justice, ICPC/ICJ, Education, Health Services, CFTMs/Case Recordings, TPR
Team 4: Financial Management
IV- E Foster Care & Adoption Assistance, Eligibility, Broker Day Care, Interfaces
Team 5: Resource Management
Child Placement/Placement Services Division, Resource Family, Non- Residential Resources, Resource Directory, Adoption, Subsidized Perm Guardianship
Team 6: General Common Functions
Search, Security, Employee/Team Management, Case Assignment, Alerts/Notifications, Forms/Reports, Evaluation/Monitoring (CQI)
TFACTS is currently in a 90 day User Acceptance Testing (UAT) phase from November 2009 – February 2010. The objectives of the testing phase are to test all of the TFACTS systems functions to ensure that they work and to document any problems or defects so that they can be corrected prior to Implementation.The TFACTS Coordinator position through the Alliance will represent providers in this phase.
After UAT, a “LIVE” PILOT of the TFACTS system will be conducted within the Mid Cumberland region. DCS has made the decision that all 21 provider agencies with placements whose assignment region is Mid Cumberland will be involved in the Pilot of TFACTS. Click here to see a list of those agencies identified to be participants.
These identified agencies will be required to reporting the following data within TFACTS:
F2F contacts (only numeric data)
Invoicing
Serious incidents
Pilot Web Based training NEW
Provider Agencies will not be reporting placement moves or Resource home approvals/re-approvals through TFACTS during the PILOT.
The anticipated date for statewide implementation for DCS and provider agencies is Summer 2010.
Changes you will see in TFACTS:
• SAFE Home studies: SAFE is the driving document for the Home study Module in TFACTS.
SAFE Home Study website
SAFE Overview and Review of Research
If someone at your agency is in need of SAFE training please visit www.TCCW.org to request training information. DCS is providing this training at no cost to Providers.
• Family Case: In TFACTS a case is no longer going to be a single child but a family unit. One of the main reasons the state pursued development of a new statewide system to replace TNKIDS was so they could develop a system that would align with the Department’s family-based practice model. TNKIDS is a client-based system where as TFACTS will provide a family-centric management approach where information can be documented and viewed for all members of the family case.
Additional TFACTS documents:
Mid-Cumberland Cross Functional Meeting Presentation
TFACTS Provider Conference: Day 1
TFACTS Provider Conference: Day 2
Meeting minutes from Provider Conference Call 2-3-2009
DCS Regional Conferences: TFACTS
PBC March Meeting: given by OIS
Conference Call with the Fed’s 8-5-08
DCS TFACTS website
Please stay tuned to this website for more updates.Your input and guidance is needed. Help us be your voice.
Questions or comments please email Heather Cottrell