Approve and authorize the Chairman to sign an agreement with Andrew J. Wong Inc., in an amount not to exceed $88,000 to develop and provide ongoing maintenance for a computer database that generates reports of client outcomes from the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths screening tool for a period of three years effective from the date of signing.

This agreement will allow Children’s Services to: 1) document results of all Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (“CANS”) provided to Children’s Services Mental Health youth clients; 2) more efficiently use staff and technology resources to support critical client mental health data; and 3) to create reports on client outcomes.

The CANS is a multi-purpose tool for Children’s Services to support decision-making, including level of care and service planning, to facilitate quality improvement initiatives, and to allow for the monitoring of outcomes of youth mental health services. Versions of the CANS are currently used in 25 states in child welfare, mental health, juvenile justice, and early intervention applications.  The CANS has the ability to be used as an outcome tool if the CANS user has the appropriate information technology needed to generate outcome reports and trends. With approval of the recommendation Shasta County will be able to generate these outcome reports. Children’s Services has been utilizing the CANS as an assessment and treatment plan tool for Children’s Mental Health youth clients since 2011. Due to the lack of a comprehensive database, Children’s Services has been unable to create reports or develop outcome measures.  With increasing expectations from the State of California along with an increasing need for Children’s Services to provide outcomes for its youth mental health programs and services extensive research was done by Children’s Services over the past four years for a CANS database.

The department received quotes and presentations from five different vendors.  The vendor selected was based on the cost and functionality of the software.  One of the vendors was triple the price of the vendor selected.  The other vendors did not have the functionality required by the department or availability to meet the timelines of this project. AJWI, a private information technology firm which markets a CANS database tool, was chosen because of their competitive cost and ability to provide user-friendly software reports generated in multiple domains. In addition for the price, AJWI offered the most comparable features and had substantially better functionality.  Many California counties currently use AJWI for their CANS databases, and this contract will require AJWI to create a database similar to the database that Sonoma County has used successfully for several years.

The agreement also provides authority for the HHSA Director to approve budget line item shifts not to exceed 10 percent of any budget category provided that the line item shift does not increase the total compensation.

The Board may choose not to approve the agreement.

County Counsel has approved the agreement as to form.  Risk Management and County IT have reviewed and approved the agreement.  This recommendation has been reviewed by the County Administrative Office.

Children’s Services FY 2016-17 Adopted Budget includes sufficient appropriation authority for the activities described in this agreement, and sufficient budget authority will be included in future fiscal year budget requests. No additional County General Funds are requested.