Case Plan

The Case Plan allows you to report progress and goals to the court on a child(ren) and/or family to gain approval for the continued intervention of DCS or to show that a family has met its goals. You can create, edit, and save a case plan from any case page. 

Please refer to DCS policy for information about the best practice about having multiple case plans open and active on a case for the same focus child.

Creating a Case Plan

To create a new case plan, from any case page, scroll down to the Plans and Tools card. Click "add" in the top right corner of the card and select Case Plan. 

This will open the edit screen of the case plan. Enter all information and click save. There are several required questions that must be completed before the case plan can be submitted. These questions are marked with red asterisks:

• • Start date

  • End date

  • 5 questions in the Permanency Section

    • 1 Permanency goal

    • Describe how the permanency goal is in the best interest of the child

    • Estimated date for achieving permanency goal

    • If age appropriate, has the child been consulted on the permanency option?

    • If the child is not in agreement with permanency plan option, please explain why.

  • All questions in the Health Section

  • All questions in the Education Section

Editing a Case Plan

Once you have saved and closed a case plan, a link to the plan appears in the Plans and Tools card on the case page. The case plan is titled with the name of the focus child(ren) on the plan and also the date it was created to help workers quickly select the case plan they want to edit or view.

• 1. Click the linked name of the case plan you want to edit.

• 1. A Case Plan screen will display. Workers can navigate to the card they want to edit using the jump menu on the left side or by scrolling down the page.

• 1. Click the edit link on the card you want to edit.

  2. Fill in the new information and click Save and Close" or "Save and Proceed" at the bottom of the page.

When you have finished entering information into the case plan, you will be taken to an overview page. This page also has a progress bar at the top of the screen that indicates which stage of approval the Case Plan is in. This page will also display any answers that have been entered and display warning messages for missing answers that must be filled in before workers can submit to their supervisors.

For example, in the placement section of the case plan overview page, workers will see a card for each child that displays a summary of information about their placement and permanency goals. In the screen shot below, the child has one permanency goal listed in the case plan, Reunification. The Not Applicable lets the worker know that a second permanency goal has not been selected.

The edit links at the top corner of each card listed on the View Page allow workers to directly access any page on the Case Plan without having to work their way through the whole flow in the Edit view of the Case Plan.

Submitting a Case Plan

To submit a case plan, scroll to the bottom of the overview page and click "submit". A pop-up box will prompt you to enter the name of a supervisor to whom the case plan will be sent for review if all required questions are answered. If there are unanswered, required questions, the standard 3 error messages will appear when you try to submit the Caseplan.

• 1. A red outlined box will appear at the top of the page that lists which required questions are unanswered.

  2. A red pill message will popup at the top of the page

  3. Inline error messages will appear next to unanswered, required questions.

The supervisor has the option to accept the plan or return it for edits. Only users with the role of supervisor, admin, Foster Family Home Licensing Supervisor, and Local Office Director will appear in the autocompleter.

If a case plan is returned for edits, the supervisor's comments will be displayed in a status bar on the main page of the case plan. 

You can hover over the comments link in the status bar to display the first line of the supervisor’s comments. You can click the comments link to be taken to the history page filtered for workflow events. The supervisor’s comments should be displayed in a new workflow history page card. Cases that were converted, that have PDF case plans, the history page will not display historical attachments from old case plans. 

Once a case plan is submitted and approved, it cannot be edited or added to, even if information for the focus child(ren) changes, like a change in school or a new medical condition occurs.  Any new information will be contained in a subsequent case plan.

Pre-populating information on the Case Plan

A limited amount of information pre-populates on the case plan. Once the case plan is approved, all information is snap-shotted and is not editable; it will also not update even if information is updated on the related profile page.

In the Health Section

The child’s current health care providers, physical health conditions and medications transfer over, automatically populate, and can be selected on to the case plan. Workers cannot add new information about the health care provider, physical health condition, and medications from the case plan (that information needs to be added on the profile page). The pre-populated medical information can only be selected or not by using check boxes.

Other information about the child’s medical condition can be added on the case plan but doesn’t pre-populate: workers can add information about a child’s mental health and document a child's allergies, surgeries, and also whether his caregiver has been notified of side-effects in the case plan.

When a child is in a placement, workers will also need to answer the following three questions related to the child’s health on the case plan: On what date did you give the medical passport to <child>'s resource; On what date did you give the healthcare questions to <child>'s resource; On what date did you give the plan for compliance to <child>'s resource

Education information

Education information does not pre-populate the case plan, but influences the questions the case plan asks (in particular, a school change that occurred in the last 6 months will trigger a specific set of questions or when a child is in a placement and their school of legal settlement changes). The case plan will also warn the worker if there is a school change on the person page that has an unknown start date.

Printing a Case Plan

To print a case plan, scroll to the Plans and Tools card on the main case page.  Click on the name of the case plan you want to print to open the plan's edit screen.

From the Forms menu, select Case Plan.

A Microsoft Word version of the case plan will be generated. A pop up box will open asking if you want to open the case plan or save it to your computer. Once the plan is open in Microsoft word, you can print it.

Deleting a Case Plan

Deleting Case Plan can only be done if the plan has not already been approved and/or submitted. You should only delete a plan or tool if it has been created in error. This is not the correct workflow for ending the plan or tool. 

• 1. After creating and saving the Case Plan, scroll to the Plans and Tools card. Click on the link for the Case Plan listed to open the edit screen.

• 1. On the view page, go to the Action dropdown and select delete. 

• 1. A confirmation box should appear that asks “are you sure?” Click ok to confirm the deletion. The Case Plan no longer appears in the Plans and Tools card.