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Provider FAQ
Question: Where are the Provider FBI Background and Criminal Record Checks documented in Ohio SACWIS? Answer: The FBI Background Check and the Criminal Record Checks are documented within the Provider Home Study (Verifications link). To find this information, complete the following steps:
1. Navigate to the appropriate Provider record (Provider Overview screen).
2. Click the Home Study link in the Navigation menu on the left.
3. Select the appropriate record.
4. Click the Verifications link (Maintain Home Study Information screen).
The FBI Check and the Criminal Record Check information (links) appear on the list. Question: When a family is dually approved, is it better to approve the first Home Study (before copying it) and then create the second Home Study? Or does it matter? Also, if the first Home Study is copied, will the Acceptance Characteristics checklist fully copy over into the second Home Study?
Answer: A Home Study can be copied at any time. However, copying an approved Home Study would reduce the amount of work that would need to be done to the second Home Study. When a Home Study is copied, the Acceptance Characteristics checklist will not copy over. The checklist must be completed in the second Home Study.
Question: What's the difference between amending a home study or updating a home study?
Answer: There are three types of home studies: Initial, Amended, and Updated A description for each is as follows:
· Initial. This is the home study record that initiated the provider's approval for the Provider Type of Foster Care or Adoptive, and the level-of-care. You must complete an Initial home study for each Provider Type record. · Amended. This is the home study record created to reflect new information added after the initial home study record was approved. It ensures that the home study reflects the most current information. However, the home study assessor can change only certain information in an amended home study. · Updated. This is the home study record created during the recertification process when the span is about to expire.
Question:How do I record a DUI / DWI for a Home Study report?
Answer: Follow these steps. 1. Navigate to the appropriate Person Information screen.
2. Click the Background tab. The Criminal History screen appears.
3. In the Does the Person have a Criminal History field, select Yes from the drop-down list.
4. Click the Add Criminal History button. The Criminal History Details screen appears.
5. In the Offense field, enter the first 3 characters of the offense -- either DUI (Driving Under the Influence) or DWI (Driving While Intoxicated)
6. Complete the remaining fields, as needed.
7. Click the Save button. The Criminal History Details screen appears.
8. Click the Save button again. The DUI or DWI information now appears on the Home Study report.
Question: Are Emergency Contacts the same as Emergency Caregivers?
Answer: No, Emergency Contacts and Emergency Caregivers are different.
Emergency Contact (name and phone number) is the term on JFS forms 1691, 1692, and 1673 to identify who should be contacted from the provider applicants in case of an emergency.
Emergency Caregiver is the term used to identify a caregiver (or caregivers) who have been approved by the agency to provide care on an emergency basis for a foster and/or adoptive child residing in the specific provider's home. The provider must first give the agency their caregiver information, and then the agency follows a process to approve them as an emergency caretaker.
Question: What displays on the CA/N Link on a Provider Record? (This is only viewable for public agency workers, never by private agency workers)
Answer: Any Child Abuse/Neglect Incident involving the Provider Applicants and/or any members of the Provider household (current and historical) will display on the CA/N link of the Provider record.
Email notifications will also be sent to the:
Provider worker assigned to the Provider record.
The provider worker will receive an e-mail notification when a CA/N intake is screened-in and also when the Disposition is recorded on the Intake.
Workers on cases where a child is actively placed in that Provider record.
If one of the Intake participants is an Ohio SACWIS Provider and the intake has a category of CA/N and has been screened in, the following occurs:
Question: Each foster home and placement is given a Provider ID number. If each foster home is assigned a number, is there also a separate number for each network? What about residential providers?
Answer: Yes, there are Provider ID numbers for each foster care network in Ohio SACWIS. This Provider ID has a Category called 'Agency Contract Provider.' Each individual foster home also has an individual Provider ID number. Public and Private agencies will maintain their own foster and adoptive home records. The Agency Contract Provider record for each agency is maintained by the State Licensing Specialists in conjunction with the agency's certification information.
For Residential providers, the agency has a separate Agency Contract Provider ID and each facility they maintain will have its’ own Provider ID as well.
Top Pitfalls in the Ohio SACWIS Provider Module
Dating the Inquiry Incorrectly It’s important to remember the critical date you’ll enter in the Inquiry is the date of the activity log “Application Received”. That date will pull forward into the provider record as the effective date of the Provider Type,with the Type Status of Application Received”. This date also pulls forward to the home study and only a few pieces of data can be entered with any date prior to the “Application Received” date (such as training). This date will need to match the paper application you accept from the prospective family. If you enter this date incorrectly on the inquiry and select Screen in-Application Received and create a Provider record or link to an existing provider record, this date populates to the home study Verification Task and cannot not be changed. Your agency Super User will need to contact the Help Desk for a data fix. Creating Duplicates in the System – Both with Person and Provide ID’s When entering an Inquiry into Ohio SACWIS, make sure to check carefully if the person (Inquirer) you are searching for is already in the system. Ways to ensure you are doing a complete search:
a. Check with the staff who enter training to see if they have a documented Person ID they used. b. When searching for an individual, you may see 2+ records that exist in the system that could be them. For Private Agencies, it’s important to have your Agency Super User contact the Help Desk with the possible IDs so they can be merged into one. In Public Agencies, the Super User should be able to merge Person IDs for you. c. Make sure to move the Name Match Precision bar towards at least the Name Variations 80% position when you complete a search. d. Don’t count on entering a social security number only to find your individual. It’s only after you have searched the results thoroughly should you create a new Person ID. Choosing the correct Person ID will then help prevent duplicate Provider IDs. The system will present to you any Provider records associated to a Person ID, and in most cases, your best course of action is to link your completed inquiry to an existing Provider ID rather than clicking “Add New Provider”. There may be cases where the system will prevent that link or it’s inadvisable to do so. When in doubt, have your Agency Super User contact the Help Desk.
Creating a System Error Do not have the Ohio SACWIS application open in two different screens or sign in to the application more than once – it will overwrite your data and/or potentially place it in unintended places (such as a completely different provider record). In addition, never use the back error on your browser tab while in Ohio SACWIS.
Approval/Certifications not being forwarded to the State (Foster) or Final-Approved Internally (Adoptive) Following approval of a home study, whether initial, amendment, or recert/update, always check your Approval/Certification link to see if there is an In-Progress record that needs to be final approved.
a. Foster approval/certifications are sent to the State. When clicking on the Process Approval button and routing to the State, make sure you are changing the Agency name to Ohio Department of Job and Family Services and then choosing the correct person. You may see Rita Jackson and other ODJFS staff listed in your agency’s list of Reviewers/Approvers, but you must switch the Agency first, and then choose the ODJFS personnel. b. Adoptive approval/certifications are final approved within your agency. If you do not have a certification or approval span on the Provider Overview, you do not have a Certified/Approved Provider. Please remember as well that you never forward the home study to the state, the recommending agency always final approves these. The Approval/Certification link is where you will find the records that need to be forwarded. There are only a few instances where you will create an Approval/Certification record (closing, transferring, etc.). The act of approving a home study typically creates the pending approval/certification records.
Adding Adopted Children to Members List If a public agency child is adopted by a Provider family, once the county seals the adoption record, that child will automatically be added to the Current Active Members list with their adoptive name and new Person ID. Unfortunately, this process often takes longer than 30 days, which is when the home study amendment to reflect this change in occupancy would be due. Check with your licensing specialist as to how they would like you to manage this scenario. You may start your amendment timely, but document clearly why it was not completed within 30 days due to the county failing to seal the child’s record. If you are running into a recertification deadline, you may need to create a NEW Person ID for the adopted child and add them to the Current Active Members list, understanding that as soon as the adopted child’s record is sealed, there will then be a duplicate child on your Members list and you must have your Agency Super User merge, or contact the Help Desk to merge, those IDs so you will not have this child listed twice.
Note: In no circumstances should you ever add an adopted child to the Members List with their original/birth Person ID As a rule, you should NEVER add a placed child to the Members list.
Not Closing a Provider ID Correctly When you terminate/close a foster license/adoption study, there are several steps that need to happen in order to properly place a Provider record in Closed status. First, you need to make sure all Provider Types are closed. These must be done individually, since some families will close their foster license, but keep their adoption study open, etc. You’ll need to complete a closing home study amendment and then complete a Closing approval/certification record, which should then automatically end-date the corresponding Provider Type. Once there are no open Provider Types, you must then go under Provider Status and add a Closed status. Until those steps are completed, the Provider ID will continue to be in Active status and show up on your workload.
If another agency owns an open Provider Type (kinship care, etc.) on the record, you can close Provider Types for your agency, but the record should remain Active and owned by the agency having the open Provider Type. If you are no longer working with the family, you should end date your assignment by going to the Home Tab, Assignments sub-tab, click on the plus sign by your name and click the ‘edit’ hyperlink at the end of the Provider record you wish to modify. There, you may enter an End Date under Employee Assignment.
In the case of a transfer to another agency, you should never close a Provider Type that the new agency is receiving. The new agency will be listed as the ‘owner’ of that Provider Type once the transfer is complete. What you should do once the transfer is done is end-date your assignment to the Provider record as detailed above.
You should periodically run a Provider Directory Report for your agency, and see if there are Active providers on this list that should be closed and/or no longer have an assignment within your agency.
Failing to Put in AKA/Maiden Names for Providers (Especially Important When It Comes to AP Search) The AKA and Maiden Names must be entered in the Person Profile before creating the AP Search request. If you fail to do so, it’s likely the request will need to be sent back to you. The Ohio SACWIS team is working on changing the system so it will be easier to get these searches done and remind you of the data that needs to be included.
Placing an Unmarried Couple Together on an Adoptive Study as Applicant 1 and 2 If a couple is not legally married, they may not share an adoptive Provider Type. Unmarried couples may be on the same foster license, but if one or both of the foster applicants wish to also adopt, they must be on a separate provider record, listing one member as Applicant 1 and the other as Adult Household Member. If both individuals wish to be approved for adoption, then you will need to create 2 different adoptive Provider IDs. You will need to complete separate inquiries for each Provider type, one for the foster only study where both can be listed as Applicant 1 and 2, and then an inquiry or inquiries that are adopt only, with one person as Applicant 1 and the other as Adult Household Member. If you realize that you have an unmarried couple both as Applicants on the same adoptive record, you’ll need to submit a problem report to the Help Desk to request a Copy/Move of the Provider Record. More information about this process can be found here.
Not Completing an Adoption Recertification/Update at the Time of a Foster Level of Care Change When a Foster Care Amendment is completed for a Level of Care Change from Family to Treatment, a new two-year span is created. However, the same does NOT apply to the Adoption span for this Provider, and a Recertification/Update must be done for the Adoptive study in order to have spans that align with one another. If this is not completed, the Recertification will need to be done at the original expiration date for the Adoption study.
Frequently Missed Items on a Home Study Choosing the Wrong Level of Care When Completing a Home Study (Initial, Amendment or Recertification) The only area you can choose this value is in the Home Study Details screen, the first screen you come to when you add or edit a home study record. It’s important to remember that if you are changing the level of care through an amendment or at the time of recertification, you’ll need to choose that new level of care here to pull through to the home study and the eventual approval/certification. It’s also important to remember: to change the level of care, you need to complete an amendment to the home study, as this will also trigger a new two-year certification span in the case of moving from a family foster home to treatment foster home level.
Making Sure Effective Dates Match an Amendment When completing an amendment, the documented change needs to be effective as of the start date of the amendment or after. Otherwise, Ohio SACWIS will not recognize that you’ve recorded a change and you will get validation errors. For instance, if a family moves to a new residence, the effective date of the new address you enter must match the date of your amendment or be a date after the amendment start date. If they moved on 5/15/2019 and you change their address effective 5/15/2019, but then you do a relocation amendment with a start date of 5/20/2019, the system will not recognize that a change has taken place within the span of that amendment and give you a validation error. The same applies to a change of occupancy. You’ll need to ensure that the member effective date is the same date as your amendment, or a subsequent date.
Failing to Associate Members to Activity Logs Each activity log has an area where you can Associate Members, where it will pull provider members that are effective as of the activity log date. The activity log will need to be marked with a sub-category of Assessment visit to link and pull over into the home study.
Once you associate household members to an Assessment activity log, you’ll see that it prints those members under the Assessor Visits with Applicants and Household Members.
If the activity log has been marked as Completed, you are no longer able to associate members to that record or change the sub-category to Assessment Visit. If you need this data included in your home study before final approval, that will be a data fix that your Agency Super User will need to relay to the Help Desk. Once your home study has been final approved, even changing this data will not alter the report, since the data freeze is now in effect.
Dating Review Descriptions of Family Correctly When creating a Review DOF for a Recertification/Update home study, under the Description of Family Details, it’s important to remember that you must enter the Review Effective Date as the first day of the licensing span you are reviewing, which would be a date approximately 2 years in the past. The Review End Date can be future dated to the expiration date of the span, or the date you are completing the record, making sure to remember if you future date the record, any new members or children coming into the home between now and the time you complete the home study will need to be reviewed. The system will populate a review question for them by clicking the button ‘Update Narratives’ under the Description of Family Details if you return later.
Missing the Area of Specialized Education of the JFS 1673 This data is pulled from the left-hand navigation link called Skills. When you enter that link, you’ll find a push-box filled with a variety of Available Skills, which you can select for printing on the applicable area of the home study report.
Completing All Area’s of Description of Home Ohio SACWIS doesn’t validate completion of all fields in this record, so it’s important to remember that there are 5 tabs which run across the screen and each requires entry of information.
Not Entering Directions to the Home Under either the Provider Address tab or Applicant 1’s Person Profile Address, click on the Address Hyperlink, which takes you to the Domestic Address Details. There is a Directions text box where you enter this information, which then prints to the home study.
Not Entering an Emergency Contact From the Provider Overview screen, click the link for Provider Information. On the Address tab, under Provider Contact, click “Add Contact” and choose Contact Type of Emergency. You are then able to enter a phone number and a description as to who this emergency contact is.
Filling in All the Contact Information Remember that you will need to go to each Applicants’ person profiles to add e-mail addresses, work numbers and cell phones.
To avoid blanks in the document, you may check the box indicating N/A for values such as Home Phone # and Fax # if the Provider does not have them.
Provider Address History
To compile a complete Address History that prints to a home study, you must enter the 10 years of residential history counting backwards from the date of Application Received as documented on the inquiry (not the home study start date or the home study recommendation date). The Address History must be entered on each Applicant’s Person Record, NOT the Provider Address tab as it may not be the same for all Applicants. To enter in this history, you will proceed to the Provider Information link, Members tab, click on the hyperlink of the Applicant’s name, Profile link on the left hand navigation, Address tab. First check the View Address History to see what is already entered in the system, and request deletion of entries through the Customer Care Center as needed if inaccurate, which can often occur if there are multiple person merges/provider merges done for an individual. Using the Add Address button, you will create back dated entries of historical addresses.
If you need additional information or assistance, please contact the Department of Children and Youth’s Children Services Operational Support team via the Customer Care Center.
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