California is seeking information on hiring a new vendor to help it operate and maintain the automated system that supports child welfare services across the state’s 58 counties.
In a Request for Information (RFI) released March 24 on behalf of the California Health & Human Services Agency and due April 17, the state Office of Systems Integration (OSI) seeks to hear from respondents on maintaining the Child Welfare Services/Case Management System (CWS/CMS). It's “the largest single child welfare system in the nation,” with more than 30,300 “named users” in 58 counties. In California, OSI pointed out, counties operate the Child Welfare Services (CWS) program under supervision of the California Department of Social Services. CWS is supported by CWS/CMS. The RFI is not a solicitation but it is nevertheless an important step. Among the takeaways:
• The state seeks a qualified vendor to continue existing CWS/CMS maintenance and operations (M&O) responsibilities and activities, "including design, development and implementation of system changes utilizing a hybrid Agile methodology,” it said in the RFI.
M&O would also include “using a hybrid agile development approach” to app maintenance and system changes such as code changes to “support programmatic, policy and legislative updates, system enhancements, and technical requirements.”
The vendor in this area, International Business Machines Corp. (IBM), works closely with the state app support team and stakeholders on all app development life cycle activities including gathering business requirements, test management, production deployment and support.
• Current desktop technologies are based on 64-bit architecture — but CWS/CMS runs and is maintained in “a 32-bit Visual Basic 6 (VB6) environment” that’s a part of 32-bit Visual Studio 6, the RFI said. The studio includes key components like base libraries and execution engine used to run VB6 apps, and some ActiveX control OCX files, libraries and tools. A “majority” of the CWS/CMS client software presentation, services and business layers are also coded in VB6.
But the software platform hasn’t been supported by Microsoft since April 2018 — and “any security vulnerabilities may not be patched by vendors.” So, in addition to M&O, the vendor “will be responsible for determining a solution to mitigate the current risk of running the application on the unsupported VB6 platform,” according to the RFI.
• CWS/CMS is a three-tiered, component-based modular system comprised of work station, server and enterprise host layers — the latter of which executes on a mainframe. It uses multiple languages — including Visual Basic and COBOL — which are “enhanced or ‘extended’” by Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) used to interface with commercial off-the-shelf components.
“All components of the entire architecture must be considered when contemplating any maintenance activities so that the base code structures and behaviors are maintained,” OSI said in the RFI.
• The term and value of an eventual new contract are unclear. The RFI specifies Wednesday is the last day to submit questions. Dates for interviews or demonstrations with vendors remain to be determined. But work to replace CWS/CMS with a new Child Welfare Services-California Automated Response and Engagement System (CWS-CARES) is planned, and development is expected to last at least five years. On close of development, Child Welfare Digital Services will need the help of a CWS/CMS M&O vendor “to facilitate data conversion, system decommission, and CARES vendor transition responsibility and processes, which will be defined at a future date.” CWS/CMS design and development began in 1992; implementation came in 1998. The CWS/CMS database now includes statewide information on children, families, service resources, and other entities used by CWS. In December 2019, the system had more than 100,400 active cases and 46,500 active referrals.
