Social Work Information System (SWIS) 003-12130000

SWIS is designed to record and store information about:

• customer contact activities
• referrals and contacts with customer groups seen by social workers
• details on interventions undertaken and outcomes achieved by social workers through their professional interactions with customers
• non-casework activities such as
• policy feedback
• community outreach
• professional development

Social workers access SWIS from Customer First.

SWIS is also used:

• to analyse casework and non-casework trends and inform service planning for the social work service
• to show outcomes and community trends to internal stakeholders such as the Minister, departmental executive and social work managers
• to prepare indicative costing for new business or budget proposals, as SWIS data provides an indication of potential workloads and customer demand
• with Commonwealth Public Sector Union (CPSU) endorsement, as one of the tools used to inform the social work component of Strategic Cost Management (SCM)

The part of SWIS that allows social workers to record detailed information about their interventions with specific customers and third parties is known as referrals and contacts.

The referral field

The referral contains demographic information about the customer and details of how and why the customer was referred to a social worker.

Definition of referral

A referral is when a customer is referred to a social worker for a particular reason or combination of reasons, for example:

• a delegated assessment
• help with accommodation
• a family and domestic violence incident
• issues relating to caring for a friend or relative

Restrictions on referral issues

Social workers are restricted to recording a maximum of 3 referral issues per referral. If more than 3 issues are identified, only the 3 most significant issues should be recorded, and a second referral must not be recorded to note the additional issues. There is currently no provision to prioritise the referral issues.

The contact field

The contact details information about the type of contact the social worker has had with the customer as well as what type of actions the social worker has taken with, or on behalf of the customer. There is also a field to record the outcome of each specific contact.

For every referral there must be at least 1 contact recorded, in many cases there are multiple contacts for each referral.

When to record a contact

A contact should be recorded when a social worker undertakes an activity that includes:

• an interview
• a file/paper assessment
• a letter
• an online enquiry, or
• a consultation with either a customer or another party (this includes another social worker, community organisation etc.) in relation to a particular customer

Customer interview contacts

An interview with a customer is regarded as one contact and encompasses the activities that occur as part of the interview process. For example, if a phone call or case consultation occurs during the interview, it should be recorded as actions within the initial contact.

Where the contact relates to a group of customers, for example, at a regular young parents meeting, this should be recorded as a non-casework activity. See Recording non-casework activities in the Social Work Information System (SWIS).

Third party contact

Contacts can be added to a referral when the intervention has been with a third party, either for verification, or where the third party is a community or government agency contacted in relation to the customer's circumstances.

Each referral can have many contacts attached depending on the complexity of the issues being addressed.

SWIS may contain highly sensitive customer information. Social work reports and case notes must not be copied, snipped or pasted into other sections of a customer’s record. This includes non-social work reports, Online Document Recording (ODR) documents, Fast Notes, or customer related correspondence.

Sensitive information recorded in the Case notes section of SWIS is subject to Privacy and Freedom of Information (FOI) legislation, record a DOC to advise that sensitive information has been recorded on SWIS.