Shared Info
The "Shared Info" portion at the top of the Child Party pop-up screen (shown below) is visible to and editable by anyone with CARES access who views this child. Saving this communal information helps differentiate specific children who may share the same name. Communal information in CARES not only streamlines data entry work but also allows CARES to keep up with a child who has had multiple attorneys or cases.
If you are adding the same child to multiple appointments, their fundamental information is saved with the child. Similarly, if you are substituting in, this shared child party information is usually already saved for you.
Caution: It's important that you not fundamentally alter the name or DOB of any child already existing in CARES. If you do, CARES will double-check to make sure you want to do so, knowing it could impact other attorneys' data too:
For example, let's say Attorney Bob was appointed to child Jane Doe and enters her date of birth as 6/6/2015. Then let's say you create a new separate appointment for another child who also happens to be named Jane Doe. You find Bob's Jane Doe with the wrong date of birth but add her to your appointment anyway. If you then edit her date of birth to 1/12/2018 in the "Shared Info," attorney Bob's appointment will now erroneously show 1/12/2018 for his Jane's date of birth. This is why CARES asks you to carefully confirm changes to any existing child's name or DOB.
Private Info
The "Private Info" portion of this screen is exclusive to your office's appointment. This means everything under the words "Private Info" is part of your appointment alone and is not visible to contractors outside your office billing in CARES, even if they create an appointment with the same child. See also Associated Appointments and What Can My OCR Staff Attorney See?