In a solicitation released Thursday, the California Department of Technology (CDT), on behalf of the California Health and Human Services Agency (CHHS), seeks an independent adviser to use “data and insights to independently assess” whether the Child Welfare Services – California Automated Response and Engagement System (CWS-CARES) is “on track to deliver a solution and set of services that meets or exceeds Child Welfare Digital Services (CWDS) goals and user needs.” The contractor will also be expected to offer related guidance and recommendations to project and executive leadership teams and the board of directors. Among the takeaways:
- CWDS is replacing legacy child welfare systems at the state — the Child Welfare Services/Case Management System (CWS/CMS), the Licensing Information System (LIS), and the Field Automation System (FAS) — with CWS-CARES, which is intended to be California’s Comprehensive Child Welfare System, “comprising both Salesforce applications and CARES Data Infrastructure services hosted on Amazon Web Services infrastructure.” Independent Project Oversight Report (IPOR) and criticality determination information updated last month gave the project a “high” criticality rating for the Nov. 1-30 IPOR reporting period, listing its total cost at more than $420.7 million and its last approved finish date as Dec. 31, 2024.
- CWDS intends to deliver CWS-CARES via a “user-centered, research-based, iterative and agile process” outlined in the CWS playbook. The CARES product road map, per the solicitation, charts the CARES Product Roadmap through a series of building blocks into a series of “Testable Increments (TIs).” However, CWDS has learned through proofs of concept that “continuous deployment to production is not feasible with emergent processes, such as screening and investigations, that entail near-real-time synchronization (of safety-critical child and family information) with legacy systems.” Thus, the project will seek opportunities as teams work through the road map “to deploy useful greenfield (no legacy integration) or quasi-greenfield (minimal legacy integration) feature sets to production.” CWS-CARES “intends to start by deploying such a greenfield tool.” The product chief and service managers have been evaluating options and will make a choice in consultation with vendors.
- The state needs the independent contractor it hires to “assess the approach to developing the solution functionality and related data infrastructure on an ongoing basis”; and to recommend as applicable, alternative approaches that “might increase speed to value, improve the solution’s ability to meet the needs of program and users, reduce costs, or enhance overall usability and quality.” The contractor selected will be prohibited from winning the award or working on any contract related to the Platform as a Service systems integrator, CARES Data Infrastructure and Product Value Services solicitations.
- Primary responsibilities include doing an initial review and assessment of the “overall resource strategy in the context of the planned approach for design, development, implementation, maintenance and operations” of CARES, with a focus on “understanding if and how the project could reduce cost and time while delivering the full project scope and adhering to CARES development principles.” The contractor selected must also assess the team’s proposed approach and assumptions for delivering “specific product roadmap functionality”; do independent analyses that might reveal a “competing approach”; and identify and develop “feasible and realistic document alternatives, data driven project strategies, recommendations, and solutions approaches.”
- The estimated contract value is not stated; the contract term is three years with three optional one-year extensions at state discretion. The contractor selected may, with prior written approval, hire third-party subcontractors, but the contractor is responsible for their performance and work quality; and the state may reject any subcontractor staff whose work is deemed substandard. Questions are due by 5 p.m. Tuesday. Responses to the solicitation — Phase 1 submissions — are due by 12 p.m. March 10 and will be evaluated through March 12. Firms will be invited to Phase 2 March 12. Staff interviews will happen March 15-17; Phase 2 negotiations will take place March 18-19. A notice of contract award is expected March 26.
