Intake Guide
This guide explains the procedures for entering and managing individuals, families, and referrals (or requests for service). These are often the responsibility of an intake specialist, or someone acting in that role. In some departments or organizations, this process may be carried out by a case worker or navigator.
The person responsible for the intake process plays an important role in ensuring the integrity and quality of data in the system; this will ultimately provide insights into family wellbeing and progress, and inform leadership on the reach and effectiveness of services and programs.
Organizations refer to the individuals they serve in many different ways, including participants, service users, customers, individuals, recipients, beneficiaries, patients, and others. In this guide we use the term client.
Intake covers the process of:
- Adding new client individuals and their family groups
- Verifying/updating the details on existing individuals and family groups
- Processing inbound referrals (requests for service)
- Managing the handover of a referral to another team leader or case worker
Intake tasks can be performed from the Whānau Tahi Intake app in the Navigator system. If you are a case worker or navigator, you can also perform these tasks from the Whānau Tahi Planning app.
Adding a New Client
In the Whānau Tahi Intake app, go to Referrals > Family : Individuals
Before adding a new client, perform a search to make sure the client is not already present in the system
Use the search function at the top right
You can search by:
- First name
- Last name
- Full name
- System Id
When you enter the name or email you are searching for, you don't have to spell the complete name. For example, if the names of individuals in the system are:
Frank Kingston Fred Smith Frederick Johnston Frederick Jones Ford Williams Lavon Freeman Wilfred Williams
A search for "Fre" would find:
Fred Smith Frederick Johnston Frederick Jones Lavon Freeman
Each of the found results starts with "Fre" in either their first name or last name.
You can use the asterisk '*' to search for partial matches inside a word. For example, a search for "*rick" would find:
Frederick Johnston Frederick JOnes
If the client is not found check to see if there is an existing family group that the client should be connected with
Go to Referrals > Family : Family Groups
Use the search at the top right.Search by family name (last name).
Review the family groups to see if there is an existing family group that should be used. If one is found, make a note of the family group number.
If the client is not found add a new client record
- Go to Referrals > Family : Individuals
- Press the +New button on the toolbar at the top of the list. A new individual form will open
- Complete the entry of the individual details.
- For the family group section, if you identified an existing family group to join this individual to:
- select the Existing Family Group check box.
- Then in the Family Group field enter the family group number of the selected family.
- If you did not identify an existing family group to be joined:
- Do not select Existing Family Group check box - leave it unchecked.
- Select the Primary Contact as the Family Group Role
- Leave the Family Group field blank. This will cause a new family group to be created.
- For the family group section, if you identified an existing family group to join this individual to:
- Complete the entry of other contact details, address details, and other demographic information as required by your business.
- Press Save or Save and Close
Adding a new referral
Add a new referral to initiate the request for service for an individual or family.
Go to Referrals > Incoming Referrals
A list of active referrals will be displayed. Press the +New button to add a new referral.
Enter the information in the left-most column. This includes:
- Individual
- Family group
- Referral type
- Referral channel
- Referral source
If you need to refer to multiple services at once, you can do so by selecting Multiple services, then on the Services tab at the top of the form, you can enter up to 12 services to include in the referral.
For a single service, leave *Multiple services" to no, and enter a single service in the service field.
After entering these details, you may enter additional information about the referral in the Referral Information tab at the top of the form.
Press Save to save the referral.
If you have any attachments to associate with the referral, enter that information in the Notes and attachments section in the lower right corner of the General tab.
When you have completed these steps, move the referral to the next stage by pressing the Send button. This will normally trigger a message to go to the coordinator(s) of the service(s) in the referral.
Note
If you have created a referral with multiple services, when you press send, a single referral is automatically created, one for each of the services listed. The main referral is then closed. All further processing for the referral will be handled now as individual referrals for each of the services. This enables each service to apply their own rules.
Close the referral form
Accepting the referral
After the referral has be sent (to the service coordinator nominated in the service definition), the referral should be allocated to a staff member, and accepted (or declined if need be).
If you are the service coordinator, you will receive an email message notifying you that a new referral has been received.
The referral will also appear in your referrals management dashboard.
Tip
If the service does not define a service coordinator, then no email notification will be sent, and the person who entered the referral has this responsibility.
Open the referral
Review the referral information.
- If you are satisfied that all required information is present you may proceed to the next step.
- If the referral is incorrect or the person being referred should not engage with the service, press the Provider decline button on the toolbar. At this point the referral will be deactivated, and no further processing will occur.
In the Allocated field, select the staff member who will be responsible for further handling of this referral.
Tip
If you are person that is being allocated to the referra, you can leave this field blank. It will automatically be allocated to you.
Press Save
Press the Accept button on the toolbar.
Enrol the referral
After the referral has been accepted there may be some activities that need to be completed before the client can be enrolled in the service. This is determined by the service definition.
- Open the referral
- Go to the Enrollment tab
- View the list of enrollment activities. You should open and complete all the required enrollment activities. Required enrollment activities will be highlighted in yellow.
- There may be additional enrollment activities that are not highlighted in yellow. You should complete these if possible. However, this is not required to complete enrollment (they can be completed later int he plan if necessary).
- When the enrollment activities have been completed, press the Enroll button on the toolbar
The referral has now been enrolled and a plan will have been created (or added to if there is an existing family plan).