Cooperative Agreement 90CA1904

The Department of Health and Human Services Administration for Children and Families awarded the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services $600,000 under Cooperative Agreement 90CA1904, effective September 30, 2026, through the Child Abuse and Neglect Discretionary Activities program (CFDA 93.670).

The award funds a three-year initiative to design, implement, and evaluate a predictive risk model (PRM) that strengthens child welfare decision-making across North Carolina's 100 county-administered agencies. The state will conduct a statewide readiness and data quality assessment, establish county implementation leadership teams, and convene an ethical review team to ensure transparency and responsible use of the model. The PRM will integrate into intake and assessment workflows within PATH-NC, the state's comprehensive child welfare information system, to improve consistency in identifying high-risk cases and support timely supervisory oversight. Pilot implementation will include continuous quality improvement activities, monitoring of PRM usage, predictive performance, and child safety outcomes.

Sub-recipients include a vendor developing and integrating the PRM, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which will lead implementation support, training, and evaluation activities. Findings from pilot implementation will guide model refinement and statewide scale-up recommendations.

Place of performance is North Carolina. The period of performance runs through September 29, 2029.