Social Work Information System (SWIS) 003-12130000

Only add subsequent referrals if the customer has:

• a new issue or reason for seeing a social worker
• For example: A first referral for an Unreasonable to Live at Home (UTLAH) assessment occurs, then the customer returns 4 weeks later for assistance with job seeking activities
• the same issue but there has been a period of stability between the referrals
• For example: a customer is referred for accommodation issues and 2 months later presents again as they no longer have stable accommodation

Note: all reviews/appeals should be recorded as new referrals, this includes Follow Up 'At Risk' assessments.

If a customer has been referred for more than 1 delegated assessment, for example a Crisis Payment claim together with a Child Support Scheme (CSS) exemption, these can be included on the 1 referral, but with a range of contacts added to cover all the activities that have been undertaken as part of the individual assessments.

Options for the customer's current status:

• Carer: customer with caring responsibilities
• Jobseeker: actively seeking employment
• Parent: customer with dependent child
• Student: attending or enrolled in full or part time studies
• Other: which applies to all customers who are not in one of the categories outlined above
• Not on payment: not currently on a Centrelink payment

This information is used to inform the Policy Departments, particularly in relation to Youth Allowance customers.

This category records the use of interpreters by social workers to interview customers.

This is a mandatory field with a default of 'No', but this can be changed where required.

This information is used to inform the Social Work and Multicultural Services Branch.

This category collects information about the cultural background of customers seen by social workers.

Although this information is available from the Centrelink system it is much broader than required by social work and includes hundreds of specific countries and cultures.

Data is often requested by this category and is particularly useful in looking at information relating to the Indigenous population as well as those from Culturally and Linguistic Diverse (CALD).

This is a mandatory field and the available categories are:

• Aust Born (Indigenous)
• Aust Born (Non-Indigenous)
• New Zealand Born
• Overseas Born
• Overseas Born (CALD)

This field is used to identify if the referral came through Customer First Workload Manager, including the Social Work guided procedure.

This category relates to the source of the referrals received by social work.

The information gathered from this field is used for identifying the way in which customers are referred to social workers and is often drawn on to assist with service delivery planning and ensure that social work is included in the development of new initiatives.

Zone offices and service centres can also use this data to identify trends and patterns in referral sources. The information is used strategically to investigate and manage social work workflows and involvement.

This is the first of the categories where there are 'nested' options for selection. The ellipsis after the category indicates there is a secondary category level below.

This field identifies whether the customer is on IM or not, and allows for an option to select the relevant measure.

This set up will be applicable to all area network staff should there be further roll out, and to refine initiatives that involve Income Management.

Income Management refers to the current IM initiatives:

• Cape York
• Child Protection
• NT Compulsory Income Management
• Voluntary
• Vulnerable Welfare Payment Recipient

See Recording referrals for customers on Income Management (non delegated) in the Social Work Information System (SWIS)t

This field is one of the most important fields in SWIS, and is intended to:

• give an indication of the customer's circumstances that have prompted a referral to a social worker, and
• record issues that arise during the intervention with the customer that may not have originally been apparent

Some of these reasons require a mandatory referral to social work and others are at the discretion of network staff.

All issues should be recorded and not considered to be known. For example, with a Crisis Payment referral due to family and domestic violence, 'Domestic and Family Violence' should also be recorded even though this is the criteria for the referral, as there are some scenarios where social workers are involved in Crisis Payment referrals for other reasons.

'Delegated UTLAH Assessments' is another time where other applicable issues need to be selected such as:

• 'Accommodation'
• 'Family Relationship Issues'
• 'Financial Hardship'

There are also some critical parts of business that are not captured elsewhere, for example, family and domestic violence and drought work, making it vital that these categories are selected where appropriate.

The data produced from this field is used to demonstrate the complexity of the issues faced by many social work customers and the wide range of issues being dealt with by Services Australia social workers.

This field is also one of the critical fields in the Strategic Cost Management (SCM) process for social work services.

The Special Surveys boxes are used to flag specific aspects of social work practice, usually over a finite period. By clicking in a box (either box 1 Local Survey, box 2 Area Survey or box 3 National Survey) these statistics can be extracted and collated to show service centre, area, or national trends.

Note: keep a track of what is being monitored and the period data is to be collected for.

Many trends that social workers may want to monitor will be local, but before beginning a local survey confirm with a social work manager if any other Area or National surveys are currently being conducted.

An interview with a customer is regarded as one contact. Any subsequent activities that take place either before the interview commences or after the interview concludes, should be recorded as separate contacts.

The exception is:

• All contacts with parents/guardians or third parties for verification, which should be recorded as separate contacts, even if these occur during the interview
• When the contact occurs via a form or letter (e.g. Over 18 statements), this should also be recorded as 'Contact with Parents/Guardians' or 'Discussion with Third Parties'

This field refers to the type of contact with the customer (or relating to the customer) because of the referral.

This includes contacts directly with the customer, contacts with parents or third parties or file/paper assessments. This is often referred to as a channel.

This field is also one of the critical fields in the Strategic Cost Management (SCM) process for social work services.

If the social worker rings or provides a written referral to an agency during the interview, this should still be considered as part of the interview and should be recorded as a Referral Out within the original contact.

There is an option of recording up to 3 Referrals Out to different types of agencies on one contact. This does not mean that all Referrals Out must be recorded as part of the initial contact, just those that take place during the interview with the customer.

This field covers both payment recommendations and delegations. Depending on the initial selection, further drop down lists will appear requiring more detail.

This field is not mandatory and should only be completed once for each delegated assessment undertaken.

This should be done once the final decision has been made about the customer's entitlement. For example, if recording a contact with a Youth Allowance (YA)/unreasonable to live at home (UTLAH) customer and the parents have not yet been spoken to, this field would be left blank until a subsequent contact when a decision about entitlement has been made.

An Entitlement Decision should not be recorded for every contact. Recording of an Entitlement Decision should reflect the work effort that has included the writing of a social work report, or adding, or contributing to, a Recommendation DOC that has been placed on the Centrelink system.

In most cases, only one Entitlement Decision will be recorded for each referral, but there are exceptions to this, for example:

• A customer has sought social work assistance to claim Crisis Payment, and is also seeking a Child Support Scheme (CSS) Exemption
• These assessments can be recorded on the 1 referral with separate contacts recorded for each of the actions relating to the individual assessments
• In these circumstances there will be 2 reports attached to 2 separate contacts for the one referral, one for the CSS Exemption and one for the Crisis Payment claim
• Where a social worker has undertaken one or more of these activities, it is vital that this information is added to the customer's SWIS record to ensure consistency and accountability

This category is intended to reflect the type of activities the social worker has undertaken for, or on behalf of, the customer. Up to 3 types of intervention (during the contact) can be recorded.

Select the most significant actions undertaken. There is no facility to prioritise the selections.

This field is intended to collect information about the outcome of the specific contact with the customer (not of the overall intervention) and from the perspective of the social worker.

This is a mandatory field. Up to 2 outcomes may be selected for each contact. There is no facility to prioritise the selections.

This field defaults to 'No' but if the circumstances warrant the social worker writing a report (even though not mandatory) this can be changed to 'Yes'.

On completion of the contact a general social work report template will be displayed for completion.

This can be used for all types of assessments and reviews where the social worker feels that is important for the circumstances of their decision to be documented and remain as a permanent part of the customer's record.

Whenever a delegated decision is selected in 'Entitlement Decision' a report is mandatory, and this field will not be available for selection. A note will advise the user of the type of report they are creating.

The following standard reports are in this field:

• Crisis Payment
• CSS Exemption
• Income Management
• UTLAH 18+
• UTLAH ABSTUDY
• UTLAH DSP
• UTLAH Under 18

The DOC Title? field allows social workers who are intending to add a DOC to the customer's record the option of adding a more meaningful heading to bring the DOC to the attention of Service Officers.

The options available are:

• SW Contact
• SW Contact - ABSTUDY UTLAH
• SW Contact - At Risk
• SW Contact - CrP
• SW Contact - CCA
• SW Contact - CSAT
• SW Contact - CSS Exempt
• SW Contact - Disaster
• SW Contact - FCM
• SW Contact - IM
• SW Contact - JCA/JCAc
• SW Contact - PF/SPF
• SW Contact - UTLAH
• SW Contact - VWPR

SWIS will automatically default to 'SW Contact' and can be changed to a more appropriate title where required.

The DOC Completion and DOC boxes allow the social worker to write a DOC that will be added to the customer's record without having to go in and record it manually.

The DOC Completion field allows the user the option of having the DOC completed or leaving it open for further activity. The default option is 'Complete the DOC'.

When using this field, remain mindful that the DOC will display on the Document List (DL) screen of the customer's record and be available for all staff to read. The amount of text should be kept to a minimum.

Should the social worker require further follow up with the customer in respect to the referral issue a Fast Note needs to be created and placed on hold and assigned to the social worker's Inbox.

All requests for deletions of contacts or referrals from a customer record must be made via SWIS and cannot be actioned by sending the Social Work Services Branch an email.

To delete either an entire referral (including any attached contacts) or just a specific contact:

• Select 'Delete' on the far-right hand side of the referrals/contacts list.
• Enter a reason for the deletion of the referral/contact, for reasons see the SWIS deletion matrix attachment on the Resources page
• Select 'OK'

This action does not actually delete the information but sends an email through to National Support Office (NSO) for it to be actioned as appropriate.

The turnaround time for deleting the referral or contact is dependent on the current workload in the Social Work Services Branch.

Anonymous customers are added into SWIS to record the social work effort for customers who, for a range of reasons, do not want to be identified as customers or it is not appropriate for them to be identified as customers.

Some examples of these customers would be:

• calls to smart centre social workers from people who are enquiring about their eligibility or the services provided by Services Australia without wanting to divulge their identity
• assistance provided to people or their families who have been affected by disasters who are not customers or do not wish to be identified as Services Australia customers

Note: the system automatically generates a dummy Customer Reference Number (CRN) for the anonymous customer. These records are designed to be used for one-off and short term (one or two days) recording and not accessed again. The CRNs are cleared on a random basis by IT Support. Reports or case notes should not be added to any anonymous customer record.

To record an anonymous customer:

• select the 'Add Anonymous Client' option in the left-hand menu
• the Add Anonymous Client screen will show
• complete the customer demographics
• select Continue
• continue recording any referrals and contacts had with the person, see
• Table 1 - Recording referrals in the SWIS
• Table 2 - Recording contacts in the SWIS