Overview of OnlineCounsellor™

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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