SSIS Data Cleanup Efforts Continue to Show Strong Progress Across Minnesota

Minnesota’s SSIS data cleanup efforts continue to show strong, measurable progress. Counties and tribal nations have significantly reduced both the Clearing Log and Intakes Needing Action (INA) backlogs through sustained focus and collaboration.

Statewide Highlights (as of June 9):

• Clearing Log Backlog: Now at 15,236 records — a 48% reduction since March.

• Intakes Needing Action: Down 37%, now at just under 14,000 statewide.

Agency Level Progress

Agencies across the state continue to make steady improvements in both Intakes Needing Action and Clearing work:

• 52 agencies reduced their Intakes Needing Action between March and June 9.

• 68 agencies reduced their Clearing Log totals during the same period.

These reductions reflect your dedicated cleanup work and strong collaboration—both within agencies and between agencies and SSIS state staff. This progress also demonstrates a shared understanding that quality data supports better outcomes for children, families, and workers.

Thank you for your continued engagement and partnership in these cleanup efforts. Your work is making a real, measurable difference.

For questions or support, please email dcyf.ssishelp@state.mn.us.

As we continue our statewide data clean-up work, SSIS/CCWIS will maintain regular tracking and monitoring of agency progress on Clearing. While Clearing remains an important metric, this month we are expanding our efforts with a new primary focus area: Intakes Needing Action.

Quick Update on Clearing Progress

Agencies across the state continue to make measurable progress in reducing the number of uncleared clients and workgroups. Over 50% of agencies statewide saw significant reductions in clearing log totals this past month. Though we did see some increases in totals for around 10 agencies, some of the increases may be related to inaccurate counts of reconcile records on the clearing logs in previous months so may not actually constitute an increase in clearing log totals.

Moving forward these will be included in the total clearing log counts and should be reconciled timely along with uncleared clients.

The chart below highlights the top 10 agencies contributing to statewide clearing‑log reductions. These agencies collectively reduced their clearing totals by 4,168 clients, representing most of the statewide progress from March to May. Showing the percentage of contribution of each agency helps illustrate their impact on overall improvement.

Thank you for your ongoing focus and efforts—your work is making a noticeable difference.

New Focus Area: Intakes Needing Action

This month, agencies are encouraged to prioritize reviewing and resolving Intakes Needing Action, with an emphasis on reducing backlogs and improving timeliness.

Addressing these older intakes supports accuracy throughout the entire child welfare workflow — from intake to assessments and case management — and helps ensure that children, families, and adults do not fall through the cracks due to incomplete or delayed information.

Over the next several weeks, the SSIS/CCWIS data clean up team will:

• Review statewide Intakes Needing Action trends and progress
• Monitor agency-level reductions
• Reach out/offer support to agencies with high or persistent backlogs
• Continue to track and report Clearing progress alongside this new focus area

What Agencies Can Expect

• Outreach: Agencies with high numbers of uncleared clients and/or high volumes of Intakes Needing Action will be contacted before June 1^st
• Resources:
  • SSIS Data Cleanup – Strengthening Our Data for What’s Next (4 minutes), is a short video that can be shared with agency staff. It provides a brief, high‑level look at the cleanup effort for mentors, agency staff, and others supporting this work.
  • Intakes needing Action job aid
  • Intake Module
• Ongoing Updates: Updates are posted at least monthly on the Sentiment & Feedback site. Short updates will also be provided at various coffee talks, Technical mtgs as well as SSIS Update articles.

Thank you for your continued engagement and leadership in improving data quality statewide. Your efforts are making a noticeable difference. For questions or support, please email dcyf.ssishelp@state.mn.us.

SSIS Data Cleanup Efforts: Clearing Log Trends & What’s Ahead

Statewide Clearing Log totals continue to trend in the right direction. The number of uncleared clients on the log for 30 days or more decreased from 29,240 in March to 25,522 in April, a reduction of 3,718 records (12.7%). This progress reflects the continued attention agencies are giving to data reconciliation and long-standing items.

To help support continued progress, the 15 agencies with the highest number of uncleared clients as of April 27 have now been contacted directly. These outreach efforts ensure agencies have the information, clarity, and support they need as we work together to strengthen statewide SSIS data quality.

To better understand agency‑level trends across the state, we also reviewed March‑to‑April changes in Clearing Log totals for all agencies. A strong majority showed improvement:

• 58 agencies decreased their number of uncleared clients
• 18 agencies increased
• 3 agencies saw no change

The chart below shows this distribution and highlights how widespread the progress has been:

Clearing Resources:

• NEW – SSIS Data Cleanup – Strengthening our Data for What’s Next (4 minutes) – This short video provides context on why this effort matters, how improved data quality supports modernization, and what agencies can expect moving forward.
• Full Clearing Document
• Clearing FAQs
• Client Clearing (eLearning Module)
• NEW - 2026 April SSIS to CCWIS FAQ.pdf - Google Drive – developed from agency questions raised during the April Coffee Talk. This resource provides clarifications, examples, and guidance to help agencies navigate common clearing log scenarios along with additional Q&A topics covered during the Coffee Talk.

What’s Coming

• We will continue to track Clearing Log trends, monitoring progress and supporting agencies working through larger backlogs.
• In June, we will begin the Intakes Needing Action cleanup phase. More information, tools, and support materials will be shared ahead of that launch.

Thank you for your continued partnership and dedicated work towards improving SSIS data quality across Minnesota. Every resolved item strengthens our systems, prepares us for modernization, and ultimately supports better outcomes for the children, families, and communities we serve.

SSIS Data Cleanup Efforts: April Kickoff

Minnesota is preparing for the transition from SSIS to the state’s future CCWIS‑compliant child welfare information system. A major part of this work is early, consistent data cleanup. As this work begins, we will share early steps agencies can take to strengthen the data that will move into the new system.
Selecting the Category on the Sentiments and Feedback page labeled “Data Cleanup Efforts” will bring you to the articles that provide monthly priorities, statewide progress updates, and helpful resources.

Checkout our new overview video, SSIS Data Cleanup – Strengthening Our Data for What’s Next (4 minutes), which provides a brief, high‑level look at the cleanup effort for mentors, agency staff, and others supporting this work.

Why Start Cleanup Now?

Early cleanup:

• Improves accuracy for data conversion
• Prevents backlogs during training and transition
• Supports current reporting and audit needs
• Reduces the risk of data failing to migrate

Focus: Clearing Log (Uncleared Clients)

Clearing is the first statewide priority. Uncleared clients create major conversion risks, and statewide backlogs remain high.

Agencies should:

• Resolve uncleared or mismatched clients, including “ZZ Help Desk SSIS/D” entries
• Use Reconcile when needed
• Address existing Clearing backlogs and create a plan to prevent new ones

Statewide baseline (March 2026): 29,234 uncleared clients
Targeted support for agencies with continued high numbers will begin in May. Below is the agency breakdown – in the future we will post agency names along with percent of improvement for each.

Clearing Resources:

• Full Clearing Document
• Clearing FAQs
• Client Clearing eLearning Module

Note: Intakes Needing Action will be the statewide cleanup focus next month.

Ongoing Support

Agencies can expect monthly cleanup guidance, direct outreach when needed, and access to job aids, Coffee Talks, training links, and documentation through the SSIS Update, Sentiment & Feedback platform, and SSIS technical meetings.

Get Started This Week

• Clear overdue clients
• Identify staff responsible for Clearing
• Set weekly or biweekly cleanup routines
• Review available Clearing resources

These early steps will help reduce future workload and support a smoother transition to the new CCWIS system.

Agencies can review the Data Cleanup Efforts Kickoff Coffee Talk from April 2026 and FAQ reference sheet from the presentation for additional information. https://mnchildwelfaretraining.com/more/ssis-training/

Engagement Across Tribal Nations and Counties

Focus Group Participation Highlights

Intake / Screening Focus Group Engagement Across Tribes and Counties

At-a-Glance Summary

Across six functional focus groups, counties participated 52 times (with several counties attending multiple functional areas), generating more than 1,245 challenges and enhancement criteria over 15 days of engagement.

Follow-up sessions included 55 participants representing 38 county participation instances, focused on clarifying and validating initial themes.

This breadth and repeat participation across intake, investigation, case management, fiscal, administration, and permanency highlights that system challenges span the full child welfare lifecycle.

Focus Group Participation

• Intake/Screening: 10 counties | 250+ challenges/enhancements

• Investigation/Assessment: 8 counties | 220+

• Case Management: 11 counties | 225+

• Administration: 6 counties | 150+

• Fiscal & Title IV-E: 11 counties | 200+

• State Permanency: 6 counties | 100+

Follow-Up Sessions

• Intake/Screening: 18 participants | 11 counties

• Investigation/Assessment: 12 participants | 10 counties

• Case Management: 25 participants | 17 counties

Tribal & State Engagement

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  • Prevention: 5 state staff; enhancements and challenges finalized

  • AICWIT: Engagement with Red Lake Nation and Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe to identify Tribal-specific system needs

This level of engagement demonstrates both the need for change and the collective will to shape it together.

These steps set the foundation for a modular, CCWIS compliant system that makes work easier and supports better outcomes for families.

Engagement With Counties:

- Attending all the county leadership meetings

- SSIS Partnership

- MACSSA Modernization and Children’s combined chair regular meetings

- Governance seats at decision making level

Engagement with Tribes:

- Attending AICWIT leadership meetings

- Tribal Consultation

- Planning input sessions

- Governance seat at decision making level

Other engagement:

- Attending ombudsmen meeting this fall

- Discussions with leaders in Supreme Court Council on Child Protection

- Presentations to child protection task force, Tech Advisory Council

- Hiring engagement coordinator to own engagement coordination

- Future plans for public dashboards for transparency