How Tameside Council uses ChildView’s full case data exchange functionality

Tameside Council has been using ChildView from CACI since 2014 to support its vital work in supporting vulnerable young people across its services. One specific area of functionality within ChildView that Tameside Council finds particularly useful, is the full case data exchange. 

The full case data exchange functionality enables Tameside Council to share and receive all the data held on a young person’s case. “It was taking so long to manually input the data associated with a full case,” explains Louise Hope, data and analysis lead. “Our business support function has been getting busier, with more work in referrals meetings and taking notes, resulting in less time for admin tasks such as this. We put together a business case for using the full case data exchange functionality and implemented it. 

“Essentially we wanted to save time. It has also helped us to improve the accuracy of our data; the data otherwise is only as good as the person inputting it. If they make mistakes and miss things, then our data is poorer as a result.” 

The full case data exchange functionality in ChildView enables youth justice services to send and receive all the data recorded on a young person with other youth offending teams (YOTs) using ChildView. If young people move services, then their record can move with them. “We use it to send and receive cases with other YOTs,” says Louise. “We would like to use it for everything but have found that there is some confusion around the process with other YOTs, whereby they only send us the asset rather than the full case. Once other YOTs understand the process, it will improve it further.” 

One of the main benefits of the functionality is to save time and improve efficiency. At a time when services are getting busier, this is a helpful facet of the full case data exchange. “Absolutely we’ve saved time through using the functionality,” says Louise. “Although it’s tough to say exactly how much time because each case is a different size. I would say, however, that we save at least a couple of hours on a standard case. Also, if the data is being input manually, we would never ask someone to add all contacts, for example; they would be attached as a pdf. So, we get a richer base of information whilst saving an average of two hours.” 

A richer base of information helps YOTs to pick up information more easily and understand the context and nuance of a young person’s journey. Where information gets lost or incorrectly recorded, vital information disappears with it. “It’s certainly beneficial to have all of the information and all of the contacts,” concludes Louise. “Having a rich seam of data makes it much easier to find information, too. Then, you can see where that information has come from, with an evidence base and contacts of who recorded what. If we have any questions, it makes it very easy to follow up with that person. There’s also increased confidence in the data that we have as a result of the improved accuracy of the data being added to our system. With accuracy and a trail of contacts, it makes each young person’s journey more transparent to us.” 

For more information on how ChildView supports the vital work of youth justice teams across the UK, please visit: www.caci.co.uk/childview