Waterloo Children & Youth Services Planning ... - Social Services

June 2012
All intake workers keep lists of contact information and eligibility criteria on others services
at hand for this work, use a variety of sources to supplement the lists (existing directories
of which there are many) and many produce their own lists. Keeping this information up
to date was also a self-ascribed responsibility albeit a very difficult task.
There was a sense amongst service providers that the task of keeping up to date on the
service system was a “constant battle”. In a system that is constantly changing some even
commented that they could not keep their own service descriptions (e.g. websites) up to
date. One service provider suggested that despite our best efforts “even service providers
don’t know what each other does”.
One intake staff person suggested that approximately 30-35% of the calls she receives
typically do not turn into clients of her own service. In these instances the worker
described that she devoted a great deal of time and attention to listening to parents,
screening for appropriateness for their own service and then making suggestions to
parents for what service might better suit their needs. All of the intake workers who
attended the focus group (n=15) agreed their roles were similar.
When asked about the importance of their “clinical” knowledge base, in order to do this
work, intake workers tended to agree that they relied heavily on their training and
expertise in child and youth development and clinical interviewing skills to understand
what families were experiencing. There was some discussion of whether families got tired
of telling their story “over and over” or whether, on occasion, telling the story was part of
the therapeutic process. In terms of parents experience of the knowledge of the persons
they spoke to while accessing a service only approximately 8% reported that persons were
not knowledgeable (Figure 2). In contrast to the questions about the knowledge of the
system or services (reviewed later), parents were generally very pleased with the level of
knowledge of intake staff and of their understanding and empathy.
Figure 2
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