“E-CINS was already in place when I came into it around 5 months ago and I am working with Pete and other agencies to take it forward. The lead agency originally was responsible for disseminating all information. You would go to the meetings, you would take the phone calls and emails and, like Mel said, sometimes you could have thousands of emails and only you have access to them at any one time. If you go off sick or off shift it can be a nightmare and it’s a lot of responsibility on you. You may not even be the best partner or team placed with that individual to give the best service. What E-CINS does is take that responsibility by acting as that filing cabinet to put all that information in for everyone to see. As soon as anything is put on there in relation to that case everyone granted access can see it. It gives the lead agency a respite in case you are not there to deal with it.
Once you see the system working it is like a light switching on or a penny dropping. It is so intuitive. We just needed to identify who needed to use the system. We didn’t want to get too many people involved in it, we didn’t want to train everyone up if they weren’t going to be using it. Getting the access levels right is really important, training the relevant teams and getting the relevant partners involved. We’ve just rolled it out in Brighton to some volunteer groups who deal with Street Community and Street Teams because the population in Brighton are quite susceptible to ASB and are vulnerable persons. We thought these people were having meetings with street community daily and we were losing out on that information so we invited them in and gave them access to E-CINS so we could get access to that information. Once it’s on there we get together with people to find the best way of doing things and we learn from one case to the next.
We quite often have meetings, sometimes impromptu, and it’s really important that we listen to our partners and practitioners. It’s all good and well senior officers saying it’s really good but it’s the practitioners who are using it and know what they want on the system. Speaking to the guys here to get the tweaks added to the system is what makes it work. We’ve been working closely to try to get policies and guidance across our borders so that we are all doing things in the same way. We don’t want to be too regimented as it’s not needed. Keeping things short and sweet, making sure information isn’t too in-depth so that people can just get an overview.
It’s important to get those practitioners together and have a plan for expansion. There are lots of different galleries. We started with ASB and we are looking at expanding but it is important you don’t walk before you run – those principles of getting that one gallery right before you move on. Some of our victims and perpetrators cross over into more than one gallery and it’s important if dealing with youths and perpetrators that there is consistency across the board.
Meeting Expectations
If we get it wrong and it doesn’t work or we require people to go back in a few months and change things because it’s not the format that works for us – that is the sort of barrier that will stop people using the system so we need get it right first time before we expand it too quickly.”
Read more summaries of the speakers’ presentations in Related Posts here.