An update on refinements to the service model to assist with delivering the Financial Counselling Program (FCP).
1.1 FCP Protocol for late or non attending clients
CAV recognises that all agencies will have circumstances when a client does not turn up or is late for a face to face appointment.
CAV considers it appropriate to record the first 20 minutes of the appointment as ‘casework service minutes’, even if the client does not turn up or is late.
If a client eventually turns up, and the financial counsellor can still see the client, they should record the ‘casework service minutes’ spent with the client in the agency case management system this is in addition to the 20 minute waiting time.
Where a financial counsellor has travelled to an outpost location, travel time should be recorded in the outreach template regardless of whether the client shows up for their appointment.
Agencies should use the Six Monthly Narrative Report to provide feed back to CAV on non-attendance trends and mechanisms for addressing this issue.
1.2 Secondary Consults as Casework Protocol
Currently secondary consultations for the FCP are recorded as an outreach activity. CAV is aware that during some secondary consultations financial counsellors are providing quite detailed advice.
CAV is proposing that a financial counsellor can have the option to record a secondary consultation as a casework ‘information and advice’ session if:
- the worker requesting the secondary consult is amenable to providing the minimum dataset to the financial counsellor to enter into the FCP client data; and
- the client has granted permission for their private details to be provided to associated services to access expert advice
1.3 Prioritisation Timeframe Protocol
When a client is assessed and a priority 1, 2 or 3 is allocated, the casework session (either by phone or face to face) must commence within the respective priority time allocated. These are:
- Priority 1 within 2 days
- Priority 2 within 1 week
- Priority 3 within 4 weeks
Returning a phone call and booking an appointment for a start date outside of the maximum timeframe for the client’s priority does not meet this requirement.
CAV expects agencies to manage their financial counselling diaries so that appointments are available each week to assist clients who are assessed as priority 1 or 2 and require face to face session.
1.4 Postcode Data Entry
Collecting client data is now mandatory, even for ‘information and referral’ services. Please remember to ask your clients their postcode and enter it in your data set. This is to avoid issues with your quarterly data upload. If you have not been able to gather the client’s postcode you can enter 0 for the postcode.