Make chapter, references, appendix names in TOC uppercase without patch or macro. Document class - Book

Question

I need my chapter names displayed as uppercase in my TOC. I am quite new to Latex and I am not comfortable using patches or macros as explained in this solution Uppercase sections and subsections on ToC and this solution Upper case chapter titles Tocstyle?.

Therefore, I would like to ask if there is a simpler way to make chapter titles uppercase in the TOC, maybe using the tocloft package?

I have also picked up that the hyperref package causes some problems. Please note that I do use this package in my main document and I have also loaded it in my very simple MWE (although not used it specifically).

The MWE:

\documentclass[a4paper,11pt,oneside]{book}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc} %help make sfdefault arial
\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage[auto]{chappg} %want to have page numbering per section this also works on equation numbering
\pagenumbering{bychapter}
\usepackage[titles]{tocloft}
\begin{document}
\tableofcontents
\addtocontents{toc}
\chapter{First chapter}
\section{first section}
\clearpage
\chapter{Second chapter}
\end{document}

Edit: After trying the solution by @fran, I realized my initial question was incomplete. I also need to make the references and the appendix headings uppercase in the TOC. It seems like the reverse was achieved here with Printing the bibliography heading in uppercase but showing it as sentence case in the ToC but my document gives an error for the apacite environment. I have included an updated MWE below:

\documentclass[a4paper,11pt,oneside]{book}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage[english]{babel}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc} %help make sfdefault arial
\usepackage{hyperref}
\usepackage[auto]{chappg} %want to have page numbering per section this also works on equation numbering
\pagenumbering{bychapter}
\usepackage[titles]{tocloft}
\usepackage[titletoc]{appendix} %want to display "appendix" before A,B,C etc. Use [title]
\usepackage[maxcitenames=2,
  maxbibnames=99,
  backend=biber,
  citestyle=authoryear,
  bibstyle=authoryear,
  sorting=nyt, %sort by name title year
  natbib=true,
  giveninits=true,
  hyperref
  ]{biblatex} % CustomBib
\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@book{2000_adams_prob,
  title={Urban stormwater management planning with analytical probabilistic models},
  author={Adams, Barry J},
  year={2000},
  publisher={John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York, NY (US)}
}
\end{filecontents}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}
\begin{document}
\pagenumbering{roman}
\tableofcontents
\newpage
\pagenumbering{bychapter}
\chapter[CHAPS CHAPTER 2]{First chapter}
\section{first section}
\clearpage
\chapter[CHAPS CHAPTER 2]{Second chapter}
blabla bla \citep{2000_adams_prob}
\cleardoublepage
\printbibliography[heading=bibnumbered, title={References}]
\newpage
\begin{appendices}
\addtocontents{toc}{\cftpagenumbersoff{chapter}} %don't want to show the appendix page number in the Toc
\chapter[CHAPS FIRST APPENDIX]{First appendix}
\end{appendices}
\end{document}

Answer 1

Like this?

\documentclass[oneside]{book}
 % small page, just for the screenshot
\usepackage[paperwidth=12cm,paperheight=9cm,margin=1cm,tmargin=-2cm]{geometry}

\usepackage{lipsum}
\usepackage[colorlinks]{hyperref}
\usepackage[auto]{chappg} %want to have page numbering per section this also works on equation numbering
\usepackage[titletoc]{appendix} %want to display "appendix" before A,B,C etc. Use [title]
\renewcommand\appendixtocname{APPENDICES}
\usepackage[style=authoryear, natbib=true ]{biblatex} 

\begin{filecontents}{\jobname.bib}
@book{2000adams,
  title={Urban stormwater management planning with analytical probabilistic models},
  author={Adams, Barry J},
  year={2000},
  publisher={John Wiley and Sons, Inc., New York, NY (US)}}
\end{filecontents}
\addbibresource{\jobname.bib}
\def\mychapter#1{\chapter[\MakeUppercase{#1}]{#1}}
\pdfstringdefDisableCommands{\let\MakeUppercase\relax}
\defbibheading{xxx}[References]{\chapter*{References}
\addcontentsline{toc}{chapter}{REFERENCES}
\markboth{REFERENCES (twoside header)}{REFERENCES (oneside header)}}
\begin{document}
\frontmatter
\tableofcontents
\mainmatter
\mychapter{First chapter}
\section{first section}\lipsum[1][1-2]
\mychapter{Second chapter}\lipsum[2][1-2] \citep{2000adams}. \lipsum[3][1] 
\printbibliography[heading=xxx]
% \newpage More bib ....\newpage Even more bib ... % just to test headers 
\appendix\addappheadtotoc
\mychapter{First appendix} \lipsum[3][1-5]
\end{document}