Overview
of OnlineCounsellor™
Configuration
and management
Staff Roles
Mentoring
Online and offline counselling
Alert System
Customized statistical data support
The OnlineCounsellor
application enables a member of the public to ask for and receive counselling
(or advice) from a Counsellor (or adviser) by means of entering text into
the application using a standard web browser. They will have previously
registered with the application and logged in whilst connected to the
internet. This Client can later also view responses entered in a similar
way by a Counsellor. This two-way process can continue indefinitely, until
the Client decides that no further counselling is required.
Records of the Messages and CaseNotes, together with Client and Case
details are stored and can be used for later statistical analysis.
Configuration
and management
All this
information is entered into and retrieved from a Microsoft SQL Server™ database, which
is connected to the extranet websites that provide the interface to the
application.
AccessManager™ system enables the OnlineCounsellor™ Administrator
to configure the counselling users of the application who can be assigned
one or more Roles. It allows the vendor to specify the facilities and
permissions assigned to the RoleTypes and RoleModels upon which the various
Roles are based.
The vendor
is also required to be able to configure the appropriate geographical
data and other data which has been chosen to vector the incoming newly
registered Cases to the appropriate counselling staff.
This
means that, for example, a Case created by the registration and
login of a new Client will carry a postcode/zip code, a subject
title selected from a list of subjects which can be dealt with and
the sex and age range of the Client.
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Staff
Roles
Staff users
of the OnlineCounsellor™ application are currently defined according
to three RoleTypes: Coordinator, Supervisor and Counsellor.
For each
RoleType a set of RoleModels exist. Each RoleType is related to a selected
range of Case attributes such as geographical location, age range, sex
and Case subject through a set of RoleModels. A female Counsellor could
therefore be given the specific facility to counsel female clients, aged
between 12-15 years, living in a particular area and in need of post-abortion
counselling. This ensures that for each Client, the best possible match
of Counsellor is provided.
A staff user
has a Licence to enable initial access to the system. The Licence carries
basic details of the individual, such as name, login name, login, password,
and optionally phone, mobile, and email data. For each Licence, the Administrator
can create one or more Roles based on existing RoleModels.
A Coordinator
selects a new Case and acknowledges it by offering it to a Supervisor.
This causes a pre-defined welcoming Message to be seen by the Client
when they next log in.
A Supervisor in turn, selects an offered Case and assigns it to
a selected Counsellor. A Counsellor selects a new assigned Case
and after acknowledging receipt, is enabled to begin a dialogue
with the Client.
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Mentoring
Experienced
Counsellors are able to take on the additional task of acting as
a Mentor to one or more recently-trained Counsellors. The Protégé
Counsellor is able to construct Messages to any of the Clients assigned
to them, but is unable to complete the Message such that the Client
can see it. The Mentor Counsellor will be able to view Mentored
Cases and will see when a Message is awaiting completion, can optionally
correct it, and then complete it so that it becomes visible to the
Client. However, the Mentor is unable to create new Messages for
a Protégé's Clients.
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Alert
System
OnlineCounsellor™
can be configured to allow emails and text messages to be sent to
any users of the system (if requested) to alert them of various
events, triggered by the Alert System. For example, a Client may
request a text message be sent to their phone when a new OnlineCounsellor™
system Message is ready for them to view online. Alternatively an
email could be sent to a Counsellor when there was a new Message
from a Client waiting for a response from them, which was now approaching
a response time deadline.
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Customized
statistical data support
Full
statistical analysis may be performed on the data contained within
the database. For example you may want to know the number of 21
year olds in a certain geographical area that have requested support
following the loss of a parent between two particular dates. Once the requirement for such data has been specified and implemented,
information of this nature would be available for presentation
in a manner previously specified in the requirement.
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