CLASS CHANGES COMING YOUR WAY!
As part of the action plan coming out of the Legal Evaluation Needs Assessment we are implementing some changes to the way we enter data in CLASS. You will receive a personalised email shortly with specific guidance and tailored scenarios. Below is a general overview of the changes.
Please note, these changes are not related to what constitutes a service, (i.e legal advice vs a legal task) or what is captured under a service (i.e. discrete non-legal support service). We are aware different services are being interpreted and entered differently and the next phase of the project will address service types, definitions and counting. The next phase of the project will also look at how we capture our work in the prisons within CLASS.
UPDATED & NEW FIELDS IN CLASS
The updates and changes we have made in CLASS relate to Funding Category, Office Location, Outreach and Flexible Support Packages.
1. Funding Category: The default currently set to “Not Specified” will be removed and a list of funding categories will be available. Each staff member has been assigned a funding category. We have hidden all other funding category options which are not relevant.
Why do we need this change?
AFVLS is currently funded under 9 different funding contracts which all have different reporting requirements. Currently all services are assigned to one funding category: "Not Specified 1". This means we can't separate our data, we can't pull reports easily by funding contract and we run the risk of under-reporting or over-reporting the work we do. This has ramifications for maintaining current funding, attracting future funding and ultimately ramifications for the Aboriginal women we work with.
2. Office Location: All regional office locations will now be available, Northcote has also been added.
Why do we need this change?
With the move to Northcote we need to be able to distinguish between the work undertaken at Northcote and the services provided at Abbotsford, We also need to be able to look at the data from each office, including regional offices, separately. This helps us better understand demand, unmet need and staff capacity to deliver services.
3. Outreach: Outreach is used for services which are not delivered at your office location and which are not ongoing services (i.e. representation & ongoing non-legal support). We have updated the fields within outreach to include outreach types which are relevant to Djirra (i.e. different courts, prisons, refuges, ACCOs) and their specific outreach location (i.e. Orbost Magistrates Court) and geographic outreach region (i.e. Orbost).
- Outreach Type A list of outreach types has been created
- Outreach Location A list of outreach location options has been created
- Outreach Region A list of outreach region options has been created
Why do we need this change?
Not all our services are delivered at our office locations, new outreach locations are also becoming more relevant (i.e. duty lawyer lists at regional courts, KWP, prisons) and these locations are likely to grow.
4. Flexible Support Packages: Within the Ongoing Non-Legal Support service we have created a flexible support package tick box.
Why do we need this change?
We know that although the majority of our Ongoing Non-Legal support service is being delivered in the form of flexible support packages, we don't have a consistent way to record this or extract this from CLASS. While this change helps us only to identify Ongoing Non-Legal Support service as a flexible support package and to count how many packages, in the next phase we will be looking at other changes to reflect the amount of work related to this service.
These changes are an important step in improving the way we enter, analyse and use our data.
Please ensure you start to apply these changes once you have received your personalised email. Your personalised email will be sent out shortly.
If anything is unclear or you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact us.
AFVLS MEL Working Group
Megan, Kathryn, Dale & Lauren
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For internal communications only.
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