Recording referrals in the Social Work Information System (SWIS) 003-12130010

• Subsequent referrals are only added when the customer presents with a new issue or reason for seeing the social worker, for example:
• A first referral for an Unreasonable to Live at Home (UTLAH) assessment occurs, then the customer returns four weeks later for assistance with job seeking activities
• If the issue may be the same 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
• 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

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

Customer status

This category refers to the current status of the customer. The options are:

• 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.

Interpreter used

This category relates to 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 allows collection of 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 has been referred through Customer First Work Load 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

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 such as 'Accommodation', 'Family Relationship Issues' or 'Financial Hardship' need to be selected.

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.

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.

To record an anonymous customer click, on the 'Add Anonymous Client' option in the left hand menu.

This will open the 'Add Anonymous Client' screen.

On completion of the customer demographics, click on 'Continue' and continue recording any referrals and contacts had with the person.

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.

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

There is an option to delete either an entire referral (including any attached contacts) or just a specific contact by using the 'Delete' option that appears on the far right hand side of the referrals/contacts list.

Enter a reason for the deletion of the referral/contact and click '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.

Do not be alarmed if the referral or contact is still attached to the record as the turnaround time for deletions is dependent on the current workload in the Social Work Services Branch.