What is an Advocacy Contact

1
What is an Advocacy Contact

• An advocacy contact is any face-to-face
  crisis/support services that you provided to a
  victim, family/friend of victim, parent/guardian
  of victim, or perpetrator
• You will use the advocacy form to record
  face-to-face direct services provided to adults
  and children.

2
How Does the Advocacy Form Work?

• The Advocacy Form is actually more like an
  advocacy record than a form. What that means is
  each person is entered only one time into VAdata.
• The record, once entered, is then updated based
  on the new information learned and/or new
  services provided.

3
What is a Participant Code?

• A participant code is a unique set of
  alpha-numeric characters that your agency assigns
  to a person receiving advocacy services so that
  your agency can know how many unduplicated
  (different) people you served.
• Only your agency should know or be able to link a
  person to their participant code.

4
Why Do We Use a Code?

• We use a participant code to protect the identity
  of the people we serve.
• The participant code allows you to know the
  number of people you serve without having to use
  personally identifying information (name, social
  security number, etc.)
• Using personally identifying information in a
  data collection system, especially a web-based
  system, can create safety risks and violate ones
  privacy and confidentiality.

5
Things to Know About Creating Codes

• Local agencies are responsible for developing
  their own coding system.
• The coding system should not include the use of
  personally identifying information, such as full
  names, social security numbers, date of birth,
  etc.
• All staff need to use the same system
• A participant code for a specific individual must
  remain constant over time

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Information in an Advocacy Record

• Each advocacy record includes five different
  sections
• Information on Person Receiving Services
• Presenting Sexual Violence Experience
• Presenting Domestic Violence Experience
• Services and Referrals
• Shelter/Transitional Housing Services

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Victim Information Sheet

• This part of the record contains demographic
  information on the person receiving services.
• Required fields on the Information on Person
  sheet to submit an Advocacy Record are
• Gender
• Race (you can select unknown)
• Approximate Age
• Locality (you can select unknown)
• Referral Source (you can select unknown)
• This sheet also allows you to record information
  on the different types of violence a person may
  have experienced throughout her/his lifetime.

8
Victim Information

• If you are providing services to someone who has
  NOT experienced sexual and/or domestic violence,
  you can record this in the other reason for
  advocacy section of the Information on Person
  Served sheet.
• It is expected that information on this sheet is
  more static and does not change often. Unlike
  the other four sheets, this one only allows one
  sheet of information to be stored. You can
  update the information on this sheet, but you
  can not add additional sheets.

9
Presenting Sexual Violence

• This is the part of the record where you will
  record information on each presenting sexual
  violence experience that is reported to you.
• Specific information on each sexual violence
  experience is recorded separately by adding a
  new sheet to this section.
• For example, if a person was sexually abused as a
  child and then raped again in college, you would
  have two presenting experiences sheets stored in
  the record.

10
Presenting Sexual Violence

• If there is a presenting sexual violence
  experience, the following fields are required
• Description of Person Receiving Services
• Type of Sexual Violence
• Relationship of Perpetrator to Victim (unknown
  option is available)
• If there is not a presenting sexual violence
  experience, you can skip this part of the record
  and the fields will not be required.

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Presenting Domestic Violence

• This is the part of the record where you will
  record information on each presenting domestic
  violence experience that is reported to you.
• Specific information on each domestic violence
  experience is recorded separately by adding a
  new sheet to this section.
• It is important to note, that in domestic
  violence situations, it would only be considered
  a new presenting incident if there was a new
  relationship. For example, a woman who was
  beaten last week by her husband calls you again
  to report another act of violence, this would
  still be consider one presenting experience
  because it is part of the same pattern of abuse
  by the same perpetrator.

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Presenting Domestic Violence

• If there is a presenting domestic violence
  experience, the following fields are required
• Description of Person Receiving Services
• Type of Domestic Violence
• Relationship of Perpetrator to Victim (unknown
  option is available)
• If there is not a presenting domestic violence
  experience, you can skip this part of the record
  and the fields will not be required.

13
Services and Referrals

• This is the part of the record where you will
  store the specific services you have provided.
• Required fields on the Services and Referrals
  sheet are
• At least one service must be checked
• Hours of service must be completed
• They system has been developed to allow agencies
  to choose between a date of service that is
  defined daily or weekly. Once a decision has
  been made, agencies are encourage to stay with
  that choice.
• Regardless of whether you choose daily or weekly,
  each new service contact will be stored by
  adding a new sheet for each date of service.

14
Shelter Transitional Housing

• This is the part of the record where you will
  store Shelter and/or Transitional Housing stays.
• A new sheet is required for each shelter and/or
  transitional housing stay. For example, if a
  person exits your shelter and returns, you will
  need to add a new sheet to the Shelter part
  of the record.
• Required fields on the Shelter/Transitional sheet
  are
• Date of Shelter Entry or Date of Transitional
  Housing Entry
• If Shelter Stay, reason shelter is needed
• If a person enters shelter or transitional
  housing with children, you will need a separate
  advocacy record for the children. Shelter stays
  for children can not be stored in the adults
  record.

15
Advocacy Questions

• Do we fill out an advocacy record for
  face-to-face contacts where we have access to
  limited information about the person or the
  violence experienced?
• Yes. Though the Advocacy record is intended to
  allow you to collect a lot of information over
  time, only a few fields are required to open a
  record. If you have had limited time, it is
  expected that there will be minimal information
  in the record on the initial contact.

16
Questions cont.

• How do I update or change information in the
  Advocacy record?
• If you need to change information that you
  previously entered in the system (revise
  demographics, obtained new info on a known
  sexual/domestic violence experience, etc), you
  can access the specific sheet by date of
  service and update that sheet.
• Remember if it is a new presenting experience
  or new service contact, you add a new
  sheet, you do not update.

17
Questions cont.

• Can I delete information?
• Yes, the system will allow you to delete
  individual sheets or to delete an entire
  record.
• You can only delete an entire record from the
  Information on Person Served part of the record.
• There is a delete sheet option at the bottom of
  every sheet stored in the record to allow you to
  delete individual sheets.

18
VADatas Not Working

• If you think something is wrong with VAdata,
  please always call us!
• We dont use VAdata every day (like you do), so
  sometimes the only way we know that something is
  broken is when you tell us.
• We also like to talk with you by phone when you
  have questions, because we usually want a whole
  lot of information that you might not know we
  need.

19
When is the Next VAdata Training?

• 2009 TA/Training Conference Calls
• March 10 from 1011 am
• June 11 from 10- 11 am
• Sept 15 from 10-11 am
• Dec 3 from 10-11 am
• For TA Call information, please visit
  http//www.vadata.org/forms.html and click on
  Technical Assistance/Training Conferences.
• In an effort to offer more cost-effective
  opportunities to help you learn more about VAdata
  and meet your technical assistance needs. VSDVAA
  has replaced our bi-annual VAdata Training with
  four self-directed training modules and quarterly
  TA/Training Calls.
• After you have completed all four training
  modules, please join us for the next TA/Training
  call.
• BUTdont wait to call if you have a specific
  question or problem with VAdata that needs
  attention.

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How Do I Get Help?

• Call 804-377-0335
• ask for Sherrie or Kristine

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• If you cant reach us by phone but youd like for
  us to know about a VAdata problem or have a
  VAdata question, you can email Kristine and
  Sherrie at
• khall_at_vsdvalliance.org
• or
• sgoggans_at_vsdvalliance.org

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Really, Its Ok to ASK

• The VAdata staff urge you to contact us whenever
  you have a question or a concern about VAdata.
• We have a saying at the Action Alliance, there
  are no stupid VAdata questions.

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Comments and Suggestions

• This is a great place to make a suggestion.
• Its not our favorite place for you to ask a
  question, because we dont look there every
  single day, and we want you to get answers
  quickly.