Question: I accepted a youth into service coordination but I still cannot get to the family development matrix.  What do I do?
Question: I am trying to complete a family development matrix but each time I press the save key I get message asking me to check the data input. Why won’t the system save?
Question: EScore requires the county to complete a child or household checklist as part of the referral for Service Coordination.  How does my county decide which checklist to use?  Or should we use both?
Question: I can’t find a list of the school district tax codes to fill in the required questions on the school system silo referral information.  Where can I find that information in the EScore website?
Question: I do not always have access to the internet when I am meeting with a family. Can you send me paper copies of the questions for registration and referrals in the EScore system? 
Question: I have two new staff members who need a training manual and access codes to the system.  Who do I call to get them linked into the system?
Question:  I want to enter school information in the school referral silo but there are no codes for private schools, charter schools or youth who are home schooled.  What do I do?
Question: I am in a flight A county and I am trying to link my old youth cases (from the pilot year of EScore) to households in the new platform.  How do I go about attaching cases to a household?
Question:  Sometimes we complete the Caregiver Wants and Needs Scale and Stability Scale on paper and enter it into the system at a later date.  Does the system allow me to enter an effective date of when the scales were completed?  Or does it only stamp as the day it is entered?
Question: Sometimes we receive referrals for youth/families that need only need short-term services or they need help linking to other resources in our community.  We call these families “consultation” families (they are also known by other names around the state such as informal cases or linkage families). We don’t plan to accept them into service coordination but we do spend quite a bit of our time and resources assisting them.  How do we track those families in EScore?

Question: I accepted a youth into service coordination but I still cannot get to the family development matrix.  What do I do?

Response:  Users have the option to accept a youth into service coordination at any point of the data entry process. However, the additional measures (including the stability scale, Ohio Scales, Family Caregiver Wants and Needs and the Family Development Matrix) are only acceptable AFTER the user has completed the required registration and referral elements.  The required elements include the referral form, the highlighted silo system referral panel, the referral acceptance form and one checklist (child or family).

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Question: I am trying to complete a family development matrix but each time I press the save key I get message asking me to check the data input. Why won’t the system save?

Response: Please remember to enter a date (MM/DD/YYYY) at the top of the matrix before you attempt to save the data.  The first matrix you complete shows the date as a BASELINE in red letters at the top of the panel.

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Question: EScore requires the county to complete a child or household checklist as part of the referral for Service Coordination.  How does my county decide which checklist to use?  Or should we use both?

Response: The choice of checklist is a local decision. The county may choose to use the child checklist only, the household checklist only or both checklists together. At this time the CFR does not have any evidence to suggest that one checklist is superior to two checklists and/or that either of the checklists provides “better” information. 

Currently, the EScore platform lists the child checklist as the “preferred” checklist for data collection.  The child checklist collects individual level data and can be easily transferred with the child in the case of an out-of-home placement.

The household checklist was built to collect “family level data” and to reflect additional concerns for adult caregivers as they have a significant impact on the identified child.  Further, the household checklist was added to save time and reduce data duplication efforts in identified families with large sibling groups. the family checklist works well for stable households and for kids that do not require frequent placements.  It might also be useful in cases where families are deemed “linkage or consultation” families.  In these cases, the youth does not need a SC team and plan—the family is only looking for short-term resources. For instance, there may be a grandmother who needs funds to build a fence around her backyard in order to keep her mentally disabled grandchild from wandering off (a real case, actually). The family did not require service coordination, but they did need some help in getting hooked up with local resources to pay for and subsequently build the fence. However, the household checklist may not work well for youth who experience frequent out-of-home placements including but not limited to foster placements, respite placements, or for kids who are a ward of the state. 

To access the user manual excerpt on the checklists please click here.

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Question: I can’t find a list of the school district tax codes to fill in the required questions on the school system silo referral information.  Where can I find that information in the EScore website?

Response: The school district tax code information can be found in two places on the EScore website: (a) in the Resources section of the EScore homepage (located on the toolbar on the login page) and, (b) as a link to a PDF document inside of the school referral silo.  If you would like to access the complete list of school codes for EScore, please click here.

To access the school codes inside of the school referral silo click on the link 4 digit code to the right of the open box for the code on the referral panel. If the user knows the number the code starts with, the user can start typing and will get a menu of choices to appear. If the user is not familiar with the first digit of their local school districts please refer to the complete list found in the resources section of the EScore site. Click on the correct choice to fill in the box.

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Question: I do not always have access to the internet when I am meeting with a family. Can you send me paper copies of the questions for registration and referrals in the EScore system? 

Response:  The paper copies of all features and measures are now available on the ESCORE website.  Visit the EScore Data Collection Tools tab under Resources section on this site or click here to be directed to that section to access these forms.

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Question: I have two new staff members who need a training manual and access codes to the system.  Who do I call to get them linked into the system?

Response:  ESCORE users are required to attend one face-to-face training session (in a computer lab) with the CFR staff before they are given access to the system.  Training manuals are provided at the training.  Please check out our calendar for upcoming training dates. If you cannot attend on these dates please contact us at the CFR for alternative arrangements.

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Question:  I want to enter school information in the school referral silo but there are no codes for private schools, charter schools or youth who are home schooled.  What do I do?

Response:  The codes are based on the tax ID’s for the 620 school districts in the state of Ohio.  Currently, home schooled youth, private schools and charter schools do not receive codes.  Counties are welcome to create a local code for these schools as long as they are four digits and do not correspond to any of the current assigned codes in the state of Ohio.  It is recommended that counties use “letters” and a number to denote these school types.  Please also note that counties should take care to label private schools and charter schools consistently in the EScore platform.  Specifically, if Smith County decides to label a local charter school as “CH08” then the code should be entered as two capital letters and two numbers with no spaces each time a child is referred from the school.  If the data is entered with lower case letters or a number “8” instead of “08” then the system will view that as a different code.

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Question: I am in a flight A county and I am trying to link my old youth cases (from the pilot year of EScore) to households in the new platform.  How do I go about attaching cases to a household?

Response: We have included step by step instructions in the EScore user manual to walk you through the process of linking youth to households. If you would like to access the step by step instructions, please click here. You are also encouraged to contact us at the CFR office for assistance—we are always happy to walk you through the process!

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Question:  Sometimes we complete the Caregiver Wants and Needs Scale and Stability Scale on paper and enter it into the system at a later date.  Does the system allow me to enter an effective date of when the scales were completed?  Or does it only stamp as the day it is entered?

Response:  The EScore platform was recently updated to allow users to enter an effective date on the following scales: Caregiver Wants and Needs; Stability; Family Development Matrix and all three perspectives of the Ohio Scales.

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Question: Sometimes we receive referrals for youth/families that need only need short-term services or they need help linking to other resources in our community.  We call these families “consultation” families (they are also known by other names around the state such as informal cases or linkage families). We don’t plan to accept them into service coordination but we do spend quite a bit of our time and resources assisting them.  How do we track those families in EScore?

Response: The EScore system is set up to track informal or consultation/linkage cases in the county.  Users can register the household and identified youth(s) as they would a regular service coordination case.  They should also complete the required referral elements in the system including: a child or household checklist, referral form and relevant silo referral information.  Once the required information is entered the user may click on the referral acceptance panel to make a decision about service coordination. Youth/family cases that will receive some services but will not be “officially” served by service coordination should be designated as “consultation/linkage” on the referral acceptance panel.  Once the choice is made to designate a family as consultation/linkage the user will be able to track dates of contact, service unit type and case commentary under the EScore case note function.

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