Shelters & Transitional Housing Configuration Data Preparation Instructions

Introduction

This page is meant to provide you with information on how to populate your transitional shelter case management specific data into the Shelters & Transitional Housing build template that you downloaded from the template-based migration introduction page. This page is only to explain the "Intake" section of the Contact tab, and the Help Line, Outgoing Referral, Transitional Shelter and Service Delivery tabs of the template.

For non-shelter-specific information such as donations, pledges, memberships, etc., please see the pages linked from the main instructions page here.

Type of information that goes in this configuration of Sumac:

Manage Client’s Lifecycle

Intake & screening
Assessment of needs & risks
Services planning and delivery
Discharge, re-entry & aftercare

Track incoming referrals
Manage outgoing referrals
Track incoming calls to your Crisis Helpline.

How the information entered in the relevant tabs will be handled:

Each row will be imported as a separate record
Any data entered into a field marked as a drop-down field or a checkbox group field in the "Type of Field" column will be created as an option in that field.

For checkbox groups, multiple options can be recorded in the data, as long as those options are separated by a comma.
For fields marked as drop-downs only one option can be recorded.

Time of day and duration fields should have the data in HH:MM:SS format
For date fields, a complete date is needed, including the year, month and day
All fields in red are mandatory fields

Contacts - Intake

These are the fields you will find in the intake area of a Contact record.

In the template spreadsheet, you will find columns representing these fields in the Contacts tab.

The information in these fields is generally considered to be unchanging.

Each individual should have only one row of information that goes in these fields.

Name of Field	Type of Field	Notes
Ethnicity	Drop-down
Employment Status	Drop-down
Household Composition	Drop-down
Number of Children under 18	Number
Number of Adults	Number
Family Size	Number
Income	Drop-down
Emergency Contact Name	Text
Emergency Contact Phone Number	Text
Emergency Contact Email	Text
Relationship to the contact	Text
Family Doctor	Text
Formal Diagnoses	Checkbox Group
Formal Diagnoses	Checkbox Group

Help Line

For every call made into your helpline, a record of this type is created. This means that for every call there should be one row of data in this tab with details of that call.

Name of Field	Type of Field	Notes
Contact	Contact	Links to a Contact record.
Date	Date
Call Start Time:	Time of day
Call End Time:	Time of day
Call Duration:	Duration
Reason for Contact	Dropdown
If Other:	Text
Notes/Comments	Long Text

Outgoing Referral

Every time you refer a client to one or more services or service providers, a record of this type is created. This means that you will need one row of data for each instance that you are referring a client to one or more services or service providers.

Name of Field	Type of Field	Notes
Date	Date
Client	Contact	Links to a Contact record.
Reason for Referral:	Checkbox Group
Referral Type	Checkbox Group
Organization	Contact	Links to a Contact record. An organization that you might be referring your client to.
Internal Program	Drop-down
Unmet Needs	Checkbox
Remaining Needs	Text
Notes/Comments	Long Text

Transitional Shelter

The Transitional Shelter Record is used to record information about a client’s stay at the shelter. Every time a client comes back for a stay, a new record is meant to be created to track the over-arching information about the client's stay.

This means that one row of data in this tab will represent one stay of a client at your organization.

Name of Field	Type of Field	Notes
Client	Contact	Links to a Contact record.
Date of Admission:	Date
Location:	Drop-down
Presenting Challenges	Long Text
Status	Drop-down
High-priority goals	Long Text
Objectives	Long Text
A timeline for transition progress	Text
Outcomes	Long Text
Target Date of Discharge	Date
Date of Discharge	Date
Days in Program	Number
Notes/Comments	Long Text

Service Delivery

A service delivery record is created for every time a service such as counselling, cooling centre, soup kitchen or warming centre is delivered, a record can be created, recording information in the fields provided below.

This means that one row of data in this tab needs to represent one counselling session, for example.

Name of Field	Type of Field	Notes
Date	Date
Service Provided:	Drop-down
Number of meals provided:	Number
Number of people served:	Number
Client Name	Contact	Links to a Contact record.
Case Manager Name	Contact	Links to a Contact record.
Type of counselling Name	Drop-down
Start Time	Time of day
End Time	Time of day
Duration	Duration
Notes/Comments	Long Text

Customization Information

All drop-down menu and checkbox choice options will be customized to the data that you have sent.
If you have any additional fields of data that you would like to have in any of the above records, please send us a table like the one above detailing what the name of the field should be and what data type the field should have.

Transitional Shelter Action Plan

This is for informational purposes only. No data can be imported for reminders into the database.

Using the Reminders Addon, this will allow you to create a reminder for each client. The action plan will serve as a checklist of steps that you need to go through, at various points in time, for every client.

For an overview of the Reminders add-on please take a look at this article. For an overview of how action plans work within the Reminders add-on, please see the article here.

Description

What To Do

Client Intake & Admission

Gather demographic and other program related information and log into the database

Initial Assessment

-Data Collection Process

-Screening for immediate health and hygiene needs

-Screening for financial and income support entitlements

-Screening for safety issues

-Screening for identification needs

-Assess housing needs

Basic (Essential) Support Services

Provide shelter, food and hygiene needs; safety monitoring and planning as required

Service Plan

Develop service plan to address identifi ed needs from the Initial Assessment

-Develop Housing Plan with clients as required

Discharge and Aftercare

Service delivery completed, and the client is discharged from the program

- 3 Month Follow up

- 6 Month Follow up

Close Action Plan

Mark this action plan as completed

Service Delivery

Provide contractual services, programming & support

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