Easing the administrative burden
Working to help keep children safe and support families, practitioners with the Flemish confidential centres of child abuse and neglect (Vertrouwenscentra Kindermishandeling; VK) and the Flemish expertise centre on abuse and neglect (Vlaams Expertisecentrum Kindermishandeling; VECK) operate in a high-pressure environment and are often short staffed. To help ease the burden on their staff, VECK sought to introduce a tool that wouldn’t just alleviate the administrative burden, but would support their work processes too. “Our people deal with very delicate and complex situations. We needed to connect the logical world of monitoring and registration tools with their world as social carers. We needed to be able to translate a solution to their world to make sure that it would support their mission,” explains Tim Stroobants, Director, VECK.
Providing a modern, flexible tool
That tool had to be adequately flexible to help VECK’s practitioners deal with complex and difficult situations. It had to allow for report writing and follow up, making sure that cases aren’t registered more than once and that everyone who needs has access to pertinent information to support and guide team meetings and discussions. “We considered several options before deciding that Salesforce would be the best tool for our needs. It provides a flexible and efficient environment for client registration and management and can be tailored to our reality,” Tim Stroobants says.
“PwC was able to connect the logical world of tools and processes with the sensitivities of our work.”
Connecting technology and people
As to why VECK opted to work with PwC for its introduction, Tim Stroobants enthuses, “The PwC team was very sensitive to our needs and situation. They were able to connect the logical world of tools and processes with the sensitivities of our work and carers, who are very socially driven, and therefore support us in our mission.” He adds, “We work in a very high-pressure sector and have little time for meetings and discussion. PwC made sure that meetings were effective and efficient so that we could move forward. The team listened to our concerns and were very constructive in finding solutions. They were very pragmatic and showed real understanding of the sensitive nature of our organisation and work.”
Protecting sensitive data
Protecting data within the system is crucial and the right balance had to be found between system performance and data protection. “This is clearly not our area of expertise. PwC was skilled in helping us find that balance and make informed decisions. The team brought the necessary technical skills to design the tool and the required process expertise to build it in the way we need, while securing the information and data contained within it,” Tim Stroobants recalls. The tool also had to be used by the professionals who answer the 1712 helpline for questions about violence, abuse and child abuse, while not sharing all data with them. “These professionals need their own environment, but we didn’t want to have two tools. We also needed to be able to link connected data to assure there were no duplicate inputs. With PwC’s help, that’s exactly what we’ve been able to achieve,” he notes.
On a mission to succeed
With its new Salesforce system now in place, VECK’s practitioners have access to a much more modern tool that’s enabling them to create richer reports more quickly, making a real contribution to helping the organisation realise its mission. “Our registration process is now more efficient and our reports are of higher quality. And everyone has access to the precise information they require,” Tim Stroobants enthuses. Indeed, the tool provides VECK with much greater flexibility and enables data to be used in a more intuitive way.
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