InfoNet User’s Group - ICJIA



InfoNet User’s Group

Meeting Minutes

June 1, 2006

10:00am to 12:00pm

In attendance: Cathy Baugh, Centralia; Karen Gill and Mary Coleman, IDHS; Sarah Conlon and Cheryl Howard, ICADV; Jennifer Hiselman, ICJIA; Teri Ducy and Angie Williams, Decatur; Theresa Boksa and Sharon Burner, Elgin; Jodi Shumate and Annice Mallory, Quincy; Brenda Carter, Freeport; Yesenia Romo, Between Friends; Aristea Geroulis, Desplaines; Diana Watanabe and Sandy Prichard, Wheaton,

Project Updates

ICJIA InfoNet staff currently available for technical assistance has been only Jennifer Hiselman, project manager. They have not hired a replacement for Tom Nichol who resigned in January. However, Jennifer has trained additional ICJIA staff on InfoNet and they are equipped to answer technical assistance calls. If programs need technical assistance from ICJIA and Jennifer is not available, programs should either dial into the ICJIA main line (312-793-8550) or call the help desk (312-793-8966) and ask for InfoNet Support Staff.

In recent months, the administrative report utility which is utility that allows for batch reporting by ICADV and DHS has experienced challenges. When complex sets of reports are queued (many centers; with filters; etc), the batches have been failing completely or not completing in a timely manner. Programs don’t experience this failure when they run reports for their own centers only, but ICADV and DHS have experienced this. To remedy this, ICJIA will purchase 2 new servers so that the workload of running these complex batches of reports can fall to a separate server. If this solution doesn’t help, then ICJIA will look into the possibility of hiring an information technology consultant on a short-term basis to troubleshoot the problem.

Some programs have reported that sometimes the speed of InfoNet diminishes causing programs challenges getting data entered in a timely manner. This is most likely to happen during times of high traffic (end of quarter data entry and report time). Right now, ICJIA staff are using the same T1 line to access the internet as used by InfoNet servers. After July 1, 2006, Hiselman will try to identify resources to purchase a separate T1 line for InfoNet users so that InfoNet users and ICJIA staff will no longer be using the same T-1 line. This should help increase speed of InfoNet.

The InfoNet User’s Manual is complete and available via electronic copy. ICADV will be posting the electronic version to a “hidden page” on its website and programs will be notified in the next week or so. ICJIA will be working on collation of the hard copy version of the manual and will be distributing to programs as soon as possible, hopefully no later than July 1, 2006. (The URL for the downloadable InfoNet User’s Manual is .)

Feedback on Recent Changes

The group services data entry screen used to indicate that programs should enter “total hours” for the session. This has been revised to say “hours in session”. Some programs indicated that “total hours” could be confused with total hours provided to clients or total hours provided by staff. Programs also should have received notice of a system message explaining how group services are tied to staff when running reports. If programs have questions about how group hours are reported they are encouraged to read the system message. If they still have questions they may contact Jennifer at ICJIA or Sarah at ICADV.

The Management Report on Orders of Protection that used to allow programs only to view data based on date issued, has been revised so that programs may view data on Ops that are about to expire. This report was implemented so that programs will have a tool to assist them in facilitating follow up contacts with clients with Ops that are about to expire.

Hotline call time should be captured in minutes. This has been unclear to some programs and some were collecting time in hours. Programs should note that the data entry screen for hotline calls now indicates that data should be captured in minutes, not hours.

Future Changes

Hiselman noted that with the exception of HMIS changes that are planned for implementation in January 2007, all changes to data fields and/or values will be made July 1 of the following year. Any enhancements to system operations (ie behind the scenes technology improvements) and improved reporting capabilities (ie changes that don’t affect the type of data collected) will be added throughout the year as they become available.

Changes planned for July 1, 2006

▪ Transitional housing as a new direct service—definition will be distributed before July 1 for programs to distribute to staff. This addition will function much like shelter with data entered including a beginning date and an ending data. This data will be reported much like shelter showing the number of clients in transitional housing program, including a filter so that programs may report on services provided to that subset of clients their agency is serving.

▪ There was a question about whether InfoNet will be able to be used to report to ICJIA on transitional housing projects funded by ICJIA. Jennifer is looking into this. There may be a chance the report form for those projects could be revised to make reporting easier for programs and consistent with InfoNet data collection.

▪ Housing Advocacy as a new direct service—definition will be distributed before July for programs to distribute to staff. This additional function like other services provided to clients on an hourly basis.

▪ Travel time for staff providing group services will be added to collect travel time staff spend providing group services. This function was available when groups were documented in the Community, Institutional and Group Services section but is not available in the new group services section of the database implemented last October. Definition of this data will be distributed prior to July.

▪ Addition of first contact date as a search field for locating group service attendees will assist programs in finding ID numbers of clients attending groups. The default search criteria will remain the same—any ID with group services in the last three months. However, programs will have the option to search by first contact date also if they so choose.

▪ The Community and Institutional Services section has caused a lot of confusion about which services should go on which tab for data entry. These tabs have been revised to include only those services that should be entered on each tab respectively. The Publications tab now only includes TV, Print Media and Radio as possible services. All other services should be entered on the Presentations tab of this section.

▪ The Group Services section will warn programs if they enter a different number of IDs on the attendees tab than indicated on the session tab under number of attendees. This will help reduce data entry errors in this section.

▪ ICJIA is in the final stages of revising Management report filters reflecting group service records tied to individual staff names. Once this is complete programs will be able to filter services, including group services, by staff name(s).

▪ A report on aggregate turn away data will become available to ICADV and DHS administrative report utility. Until now, DHS and ICADV would have to ask each program run a report on Turn Aways and aggregate those numbers by hand. This will help ICADV and DHS report to federal funding agencies and advocating for additional dv funding.

Changes Planned After July 1, 2006

▪ A Management report will be added so programs can review no show and cancellation data

▪ An Exception report will be added so programs can review client records that have “unknown” in intake data elements.

▪ ICJIA has identified funding sources to support the work necessary to implement HMIS changes to InfoNet. ICJIA does not have the expertise in-house to complete this work and will have to contract out for those services. ICJIA will be posting the RFP for this project and selecting a contractor this summer. Work should begin in September and be completed in December. Tentative training on these changes has been scheduled for December 5 (Chicago) and December 7 (Springfield). Implementation of these changes will be January 1, 2007.

▪ A date range will be added to the Exception report Clients Without Primary Presenting Issue. This will allow programs to look a subset of clients vs all clients in the database, including those that have not received services in many years.

▪ A data field will be added to Community and Institutional Services section so that programs may report presentations and trainings provided in each county within their catchment area.

▪ A warning message will be added to notify programs that enter a service record for a client case that has been closed.

▪ A reporting filter will be added to allow programs to report on a subset of clients based on the special needs they had (ie services provided to Deaf clients, etc). This will be added first to the Management Reports then to Standard Reports later.

▪ A report will be created to allow programs to run a report to reflect services provided to clients after those clients leave shelter. This will first be added to the Management reports then to Standard Reports later.

▪ A report will be created to show data on referrals provided to clients.

▪ A report will be added to reflect clients that do not have offender information entered.

▪ Staff name and service type will be added to the search criteria function of the direct clients services; group services; and community services section. This will allow programs to make their search more narrow when looking up data already entered.

▪ A warning message will be added to notify programs if they are trying to enter information on an expired funding source.

▪ A management report will be added to report data entered in Comment and Text boxes throughout the database. A few examples of how programs are using these data might be tracking one particular outside agency or judge interacting with clients. One issue that needs to be discussed before this report is completed will be dealing with the possibility of typos. An assessment of how those fields are used would also be helpful (ie how are programs using each? Are they using each? Are their any consistencies that could be grouped as a list editor like with some other drop down lists throughout the database?).

Changes Suggested—Not to be Implemented

One program suggested that there be a filter that would allow programs to run a report based on the day of the week the services were provided (ie services provided on Monday vs Tuesday). This is not feasible. Programs are asked to run each daily report with a CSV file and export the CSV files into a spreadsheet to calculate totals provided on a given day of the week.

Programs inquired about having an option to type ID numbers of clients attending group sessions. This is not a feasible solution from a programming perspective due to the complexity of avoiding typos when entering ID numbers. If programs have other suggestions for making this function more efficient, they are encouraged to let ICJIA or ICADV know.

Guidelines for Data Entry—Review of Services Needed and Received

This data entry screen is not being used by most programs at all or being used inconsistently. To begin building a consistent level of understanding for how this data should be collected/entered, the group explored current understandings of its use. Major discussions topics included the following items.

Should the services list here mirror the services in the direct services drop down menu?

Yes. This list should mirror the services that are available in the direct services drop down list. This will keep data collected on service needs upon intake consistent with the services an agency can enter in services table. This will help programs identify what needs a client has compared to the needs that are being met by the agency. Needs that must be met outside of the dv program is a separate issue discussed below.

Who determines what services are needed at intake—the client or the program?

Example: Clients may call the program saying they need shelter and this is the only service the client may feel she needs until further explanation of possible resources is provided to her. However, once she knows about getting help petitioning for an OP and getting child care, those are also services she feels she needs. Services needed at intake should be defined as services the client determines she needs once here situation has been discussed with the dv staff person. This should be defined for programs.

Is there a need to differentiate the difference between client needs at intake vs needs that may surface subsequent to intake? Should client service needs list reflect those needs determined at intake or should they be updated throughout service delivery as additional needs are identified?

More discussion about this needs to take place.

Is there a need to define what it means to say a client “received” a service?

Generally speaking the committee thought that if a client received any level of one service that it would meet the definition of a client “receiving” this service (client needs legal advocacy, program is able to provide client 1 hour of legal advocacy = her need was met). This will be defined for programs. The services received data will be automatically pulled from the direct client service table as service hours are entered for individual clients. It is too cumbersome for programs to have to go back to this screen throughout a client’s tenure at a program and enter this.

New VAWA reporting requirements state that programs must collect information on whether a client was not served; was partially served; or was fully served. Given these loosely written requirements, “received” will be defined as a client receiving any level of that service.

Is there a need to collect information between needs the agency can meet and service needs a client may need to seek outside of the dv agency?

Preliminary discussion indicated that if programs were collecting information on needs of clients vs resources available in their communities, the dv community could potentially use that information to leverage more resources offered outside of the local dv program, resources dv victims often need to escape the abusive environment. Examples of services a dv client may need that dv programs may not be able to provide: employment services; financial assistance; transportation; housing; child care; physical health care; mental health care; substance abuse treatment; legal services—orders of protection; legal services—civil family issues; legal services—other; legal services—immigration. Collecting this information would allow us to see what needs clients have and what needs are being (or not being) met by the community. These should be added to the service needs list, but it should be clear that most dv programs don’t offer these types of services.

Should there be a report aggregating this data?

Yes. This will encourage programs to use this section more consistently. A standard report will be designed to reflect aggregate numbers of services needed at intake and services received. A management report will be designed to allow programs to view client level detail on needs at intake vs services the client has received. This management report will allow the program to assess how well her needs are being met.

ICJIA will be drafting a revised version of this data entry screen for the next meeting for further discussion.

FY07 User’s Group Plan

The User’s Group Committee will be revised beginning in FY07. Some members will be asked to step down from the Committee to allow for new member participation. The User’s Group will be approximately 12-15 participants knowledgeable about management of dv programs; delivery of services; and data collection/ usage in dv programs. The focus of this Committee will remain on enhancements to InfoNet, making it a better tool for dv programs in Illinois.

Participants will be selected based on the above criteria; will ensure representation from each region of Illinois; and will ensure representation from shelter programs and walk in programs. ICADV, ICJIA and DHS will be contacting potential members in the coming weeks. Unfortunately, not all 67 dv program users can participate in these meetings and therefore the group is a representation of those agencies. All users will be provided a complete list of members and contact information for each so they may provide feedback to the committee through individual members also. In addition, 3-5 “guest” seats will be available at each meeting, depending on space availability. These seats may be filled by guest participants from non committee members and will be filled on a first come first served basis.

FY07 Training

Conference Calls

ICADV and ICJIA will be facilitating monthly conference calls open to all dv programs as a new method for providing assistance on InfoNet which will facilitate discussion among dv programs and encourage consistency in data collection.

The goals of these calls are: 1) to provide answers to InfoNet questions; 2) provide explanations to common misinterpretations; 3) help programs learn how InfoNet may benefit their program; and 4) identify possible inconsistencies in data collection efforts and make clarifications accordingly. If we receive positive feedback on these calls, we will continue them on a regular basis. Mark your calendars and look for more details closer to the time of each call.

| |CALL 1 |CALL 2 |

|Date |Wednesday, July 12, 2006 |Wednesday, August 16, 2006 |

|Time |2:00pm to 3:30pm |10:00am to 11:30am |

|Topic |Data Entry/Collection |Management/Report Issues |

|Target Audience |Data entry staff; direct service supervising staff; |Supervisors; program directors; executive directors |

| |program directors | |

Lab Trainings

Details and registration information will be sent to programs closer to the time of each training.

NEW USER TRAINING

Chicago—August 2, 2006

Springfield—August 17, 2006

FUNDING FOR STAFF/REPORTING

Chicago—November 1, 2006

Springfield—November 8, 2006

HMIS CHANGES

Chicago—December 5, 2006

Springfield—December 7, 2006

Next meeting date

The next meetings of the User’s Group are scheduled for October 5, 2006 and December 14, 2006.

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