Frequently Asked Questions

In addition to our InfoNet partners, three types of local service providers use InfoNet: child advocacy, domestic violence, and sexual assault centers. Data from all three types are maintained in one system, but user interfaces are tailored to the unique needs of each type. A total of 103 local service providers access InfoNet from nearly 200 sites statewide. They include 66 domestic violence centers, 32 sexual assault centers and five child advocacy centers.

Basic information about all victims (clients) who receive services from a community based service provider is entered into InfoNet, including demographics, health insurance, employment, education, marital status, income source, referral source, and special needs. The type of victimization and severity of abuse is also captured, as well as victim interactions with legal and health care systems. Data are also entered about the abuser’s involvement with the criminal justice system, including arrests, charges filed, case dispositions, and sentences. Information is added to a client’s record over time, creating a history of services and events. Information that could be used to identify a client, such as name or birth date, is not entered into InfoNet. Rather, a unique number is used to track each client.

Additionally, service providers enter all services provided by staff and volunteers. This includes services to clients such as crisis intervention and court advocacy, as well as services to the community such as prevention, training and public awareness. Administrative information entered into InfoNet includes staff funding sources and allowable services, which is used to generate reports that reflect grant specific information.

Remote users access InfoNet via the Internet. Several levels of security have been built into the system, including password protection at the organizational, individual and device levels. InfoNet uses a virtual private network (VPN) that encrypts data securely as it transports information between users and Authority InfoNet servers.

This centralized system shifts technical responsibilities for maintaining a data collection and reporting system from service providers, which often have little to no resources for information technology, to technical professionals at ICJIA. Service providers may use InfoNet at no cost, but they are responsible for obtaining a device that meets minimum specifications and an Internet connection.

InfoNet includes a comprehensive set of reporting tools that facilitate data mining and analysis. These tools include standard reports that meet most state and federal reporting requirements, as well as management reports and data filters that assist case tracking and staff management. InfoNet reports are also utilized on local, regional and state levels to identify emerging trends and target limited resources where they are most needed.

As of October 2023, InfoNet contains 26 years of data, totaling more than 1.2 million client records and 25 million service contacts.

No. Program administrators may revise these forms or recreate their own, as long as the required information is collected. ICADV-created intake forms include those for adults and children and for residential and non-residential programs; medical criminal justice process forms; service note documentation forms for adults and children; hotline call log form; turn away data collection form; group services form; and community and institutional data collection form. These forms may be requested by contacting CJA.InfonetHelp@illinois.gov.

Yes, signatures are required.

No. The Comments section must be completed with client-specific information. As these are paper files kept at your agency, they fall under a different set of security policies than InfoNet, which avoids open text fields related to client specifics.

The check boxes help save writing time for staff. These are not services entered into InfoNet, but common activities. There may be 3 or 4 boxes checked for topics covered that fit within one service category. For example, you might have spent an hour with a client and check 4 boxes. The hour of service fits civil legal advocacy, which is entered into InfoNet as a service. For each contact you 1) enter the hours of service in appropriate category, 2) indicate common topics covered (check boxes), and 3) write notes for interaction in the Comments section.

Client information collected to document the client’s profile at the time of intake into the program. A sample form can be obtained from ICADV or by contacting CJA.InfonetHelp@illinois.gov. You may also create your own data collection form.

Only Client ID, Age, Race, Sex, First Contact Date, and Primary Presenting Issue are mandatory before you can enter a client in InfoNet. However, you should be collecting most intake data for most clients if possible, as that information is related to developing a comprehensive safety plan. Unknown and Unassigned data should be kept to a minimum. Most of the data fields in the InfoNet data entry screens for intake are relevant to development of a comprehensive safety plan with a client.

Most of this information may be obtained simply by saying “Tell me about your situation” to a client. Discussion style data collection may be better received by a victim than handing her a form to fill out. Advocates who use a discussion style will get more information and help victims the most.

This should also be balanced with importance of asking all questions to all clients, rather than making assumptions based on factors such as physical appearance. Be cognizant that asking all clients all questions not only avoids potential undercounting of some groups, but also avoids situations where individuals are only asked questions due to physical appearance.

You may design your own numbering system to assign Client ID numbers, so long as the Client IDs contain no personally identifying information such as names, social security numbers, phone number, or dates of birth.

There are some general best practices as determined by existing InfoNet users:

• End client IDs with a distinct letter like V or A for adults and C for children.

• While the household feature should be used to link Adults and children (mandatory for HUD funded shelters), the following can assist in finding family members:

  • For multiple children of the same adult victim, add another letter or number to the ID that corresponds to the child’s age order (i.e. AC would be for the oldest child, BC would be for the next oldest child, CC for the next oldest, etc.

  • Use the same core identifier for clients served from the same household or family. For example, a mom and her two children could be entered as: AB123v (mom); AB123c1 (older child); and AB123c2 (younger child). This gives you a visual indicator of clients from the same family or household in search results and service summaries.

ABSOLUTELY NOT!

No personal identifiers can be part of a client’s assigned ID number. This practice is critical to protecting client confidentiality.

Updating an intake:

You should not update an intake except to complete or correct information pertinent to the client’s situation when they first started receiving services.

Intake information entered into InfoNet should correspond to the victim’s situation at the time of intake and should not be changed over time even as her situation may change. While a client receives services, things such as Employment Status, Marital Status, or Income may change such changes should NOT result in InfoNet data edits, as InfoNet must reflect a client’s situation at the point of intake.

However, important changes in the client’s life should be documented in their physical case file.

If you do need to correct or complete information related to the client’s status at intake: view the client’s record, edit the blank, incorrect or unknown fields, then save the updated record. Only the following intake information should be updated as the client’s situation changes over time: Referred To, Services Needed/Received, Residence, and Offender information.

_Entering a new case: _

Enter a new case for any client returning after a lapse in service of more than one year. Clients should maintain their assigned ID number regardless of how much time has passed. To add a new case, view the client’s record and click Add New Case. The screen will retain the client’s ID number, Gender Identity, Ethnicity, and Race. All other fields should be entered to reflect the client’s situation at the beginning of this new case. The First Contact Date should correspond to the client’s most recent contact with the program.

Agency policy should dictate when a client file should be closed.

Generally, we recommend closing a file whenever the client has not been in contact for over one year.

Clients aged 18 and older are considered adults. However, if you have a teen who is the primary victim of domestic violence (e.g. teen dating violence), you may open him or her as an adult. If the teen is not emancipated, obtain consent for services from her parent or guardian before providing more than 5 service sessions of up to 45 minutes each.

Yes.

You should obtain consent for services from her parent or guardian before providing more than 5 service sessions of up to 45 minutes of service.

If the child only remained in shelter for a couple of months after her 18th birthday, then she probably would not need an adult file. If she continues to receive services for several months after her birthday, it may be more appropriate to close her child file and open an adult file for her.

If your client was originally seen as a child witness and returns as an adult, primary victim of domestic violence, close their child file, and open him or her as an adult with a new client ID number. Reference this client’s history with the program in their physical file.

The child should be tied to the grandmother’s record since she has custody and is bringing the child in for services. Similarly, if a foster parent brings a child witness for services, the child should be tied to the foster parent’s record. If the custodial parent is not receiving services, the child’s case should be opened independently of the adult.

Additionally, you can open this child client as an adult record to ensure you can enter offender and other data only linked to adult clients. If this option is taken, make sure you assign this child a child’s ID number (ending with a “c”) even though you are entering this child client as an adult.

The county in which she resided at the time of intake. If your client lives in Christian County and moves to shelter in Sangamon County shortly after intake, the client is still considered a Christian County client. However, if the clients move to Sangamon County (and if applicable move back) should be documented in residences.

Enter Not of School Age.

Enter High School Graduate.

You cannot delete a client and in general use there should not be a need to delete a client. However, as data belongs to the center, you may overwrite a client “to be deleted” with a new client, if desired. ICJIA discourages this unless the client “to be deleted” was a duplicate client record, an individual later determined not to be a victim, or a victim who insisted their data be scrubbed. Deleting or overwriting client records also removes them from historical records and reporting and could lead to further underestimation of DV needs.

If it is nonetheless appropriate to delete/overwrite a client, you can edit the Client ID number to indicate it as an obsolete record. Edit the Client ID # with some indicator flagging it as an obsolete record, e.g. 123v-BADID. Then, delete any services entered under this record. To see if services exist, go to the client’s direct services section on their record (and do the same for housing services). Delete any services found. Clients without services will not appear on standard or management reports, so this obsolete record will not affect your data.

If you want to rid the obsolete record completely, you can overwrite this record with a new client’s information. When the next new client comes in, instead of adding a new Adult (or Child) record, do the following: 1) View the “bad” client record; 2) Edit the Client ID # to reflect the new client’s ID #; and 3) Proceed to overwrite EVERY field with the new client’s information and save.

You cannot change a client’s type or delete the client. Follow the steps for the question above for deleting the client and re-enter this client under the correct type.

The “In” column refers to pre-intervention behavior problems identified at intake, during a formal assessment, or additional observations noted during the first 1-2 weeks of service.

The “Out” column refers to post-intervention behavior issues identified after assessment and following services, usually through observation and/or reports by parent and/or child. Because some clients may end services abruptly after a few sessions and do not have the opportunity to fully benefit from the services, grantees should develop a schedule for completing the “Out” behavior issues.

No, keep the case open. However, depending on the age of the child, the agency should consider whether the child may benefit from more meaningful interaction with staff such as counseling while the parent is receiving services.

Enter 0 (zero) as the age.

Enter -1.

However, if you have a good estimation of her age, enter the approximate value. It is better to have the client fall within an age range on the report than to have several Unknown ages for clients.

Select Not Applicable.

See Client Medical Criminal Justice Information Section.

When documenting the number of children an adult client has, should I document the number of children in the parent’s care or total number of children, including grown, independent children?

Use .25 hour increments. 15 minutes = .25 hours; 30 minutes = .5 hours; etc. The time entered should reflect as closely as possible the total amount of time spent with the client providing service and time completing documentation for that interaction.

Yes.

You must enter the contractual person in the AdministrationStaff Information section of the database using the term Contractual as their First Name (or part of their first name, e.g. John - Contractual). Their Last Name could be the type of service or their actual name. For example, your program’s contractual child therapist may be entered as: First Name = Contractual; Last Name = Child Therapist.

Note: This may change in a future update.

You should document this as Individual Child Counseling under the child’s ID number. If intakes for multiple children are being completed, enter an Individual Child Counseling service record for each child.

Sometimes. If you have a client in shelter and the client leaves for 1-3 nights with plans to return, AND you are holding space for this client, do not close the shelter service record. If your client leaves shelter for more than 3 nights in a row, OR their space was NOT held during absent nights, close the shelter record and enter a new shelter record if the client returns. Always document when the client leaves shelter in your paper log sheet and client files. If your agency receives HUD funding, follow policies of HUD and/or your local continuum of care’s (COC) policy instead of the above.

Providing shelter (on or off site) is providing housing in emergency situations. If you provide a place to stay, document this as receiving shelter. Use your best judgment. If a client comes into shelter for only 2 hours (from 7-9 p.m.) and decides to leave, that would not be considered a shelter night. However, if a client comes into shelter at 3 a.m. and leaves at 8 a.m., you have provided a place to stay overnight and that shelter night should be entered.

On-Site Shelter is provided on-site at the residential domestic violence program. Off-site shelter is emergency shelter provided to clients by the domestic violence programs, but at an off-site location such at a safe home or motel.

Enter Begin and End Dates for the Off-Site Shelter stay. Then enter additional Begin and End Dates to reflect an on-site shelter stay in your residential facility.

Record the session as a Group Services and include parents and children as attendees. See Group Services Section.

While not required, you may track No Shows and Cancellations for any service by entering data on this page: ServicesDirect Client ServicesNo Show/Cancellation. Do not document service hours for the time you waited for the client. Instead, enter a No Show record and make a note in the client’s physical file.

The time should be entered only for the staff person who was the primary source of information in that session and completing the documentation for that interaction.

Transportation.

Document that contact under the child’s record since the parent may be administering medication to more than one child.

Legal Services/Attorney because the services are provided under the direction and supervision of the attorney.

No. Entering data into InfoNet is an operational activity and should not be included in hours of services provided to clients. However, time counselors/advocates spend completing service case notes may be counted in direct client service hours provided to clients.

See Direct Client Service Definitions for listing of appropriates services.

Transportation.

Counseling services are the general emotional support, education, and other information and resource services that domestic violence programs regularly provide. Therapy activities are more intensive, therapeutic services provided by a licensed therapist working for the domestic violence program. If licensed staff are providing therapy, therapy categories (e.g. Group Therapy, Individual Therapy) should be used.

IDVA advocacy (Civil or Criminal Legal Advocacy/OP) likely will be recorded for every intake. This time should be counted as Civil Legal Advocacy/OP (or Criminal Legal Advocacy/Obtain OP if appropriate).

Although this is considered good practice and should be completed with as many new clients as possible, there may be situations that don’t lend themselves to discussing IDVA issues, especially with clients in extreme crisis. Between 90% and 95% of new clients should receive Civil Legal Advocacy/OP services. If the number new clients not receiving this service becomes excessive, it may warrant further examination.

Other Advocacy is entered under the child client’s record.

Parental Services

Document the parent’s attendance in Parental Services. Document the group session under the children’s records as Group Children’s Counseling.

Life Skills.

Go to ServicesGroup Services and enter the group session indicating the Conduct Hours and Preparation Hours for each staff person. If both staff co-facilitated during the whole session, both staff should receive one full Conduct Hour. Remember, Total Session Hours should match the length of the session (one hour).

Use Group Services and add both parent and child to the attendees.

Most likely, the ID number is not showing up in the Available Clients list because the default search criteria used to create that list exclude the client you are looking for. The default list shows ONLY those Client IDs who received any type of group service within the last 90 days. A client who never received a group service before will not appear in this list.

• If there are dates entered in the Group Service Date fields, try removing the dates from the Group Service Date fields entirely and use another search field, such as First Contact Date, Client ID, or Client Type.

• If you still cannot find your client, try searching with all the search fields blank. This will produce a list of all clients ever served by your agency. The list will be long, but Client IDs are listed in alphanumeric order so you should be able to find the client fairly easily.

Start by entering the Group Service information. Enter the number of children cared for as the number of participants. Then, on the attendees tab, enter the ID numbers of ONLY THE ADULTS that received Child Care as a service. Remember: Child Care is a service provided to an adult client, not a child. The number of participants on the Group Service tab will provide the number of children cared for in that group setting.

Note that when saving this record, a warning message will likely appear stating that the number of Attendees (adult Client ID numbers added to group) does not match the number of Participants (number of children cared for). This is okay; just disregard the message as this is a unique type of group service. The message is just a warning to ensure you do not mistakenly leave out attendees and will not prevent you from saving the record as entered.

You would enter the group service as Group IDVA, 1 session for 1 hour, and then all three (3) Client ID numbers on the Attendees tab. This will show up on the Standard Services Report in multiple places depending on which sub-report you are viewing: 1) On the Client Services Report (1st table), 3 hours of direct client service will be displayed because 3 clients each received 1 hour of service and 2) 1 hour of service will be displayed on the Community, Institutional, & Group Services Report, because the session was 1 hour (Presentation Hours).

These are clients with multiple cases. The number after the ID indicates the case number for that client. Add the most recent case or the ID with the highest case number to the group.

Complete 1 group log sheet for the session indicating the amount of time spent on each topic. For example, if the session was 2 hours long and 1 hour of it was Adult Group Counseling, ½ hour was spent on Life Skills, and ½ hour was spent on Conflict Resolution, enter 3 separate group sessions: 1-hour session Adult Group Counseling; ½ hour session on Life Skills; and ½ hour session on Conflict Resolution.

Yes, you may enter aggregate monthly data. However, remember that if you aggregate your data entry, you will not be able to extract weekly or daily data—only monthly aggregate totals. If you decide to aggregate monthly, be consistent with the date you enter into InfoNet to represent the month. For example, staff should all enter the last date of the month to represent the entire month.

Institutional Advocacy is advocating on behalf of a class of domestic violence victims to improve how the system responds to them.

Example: explaining the benefits of implementing the Illinois Model DV Protocol for Law Enforcement to a group of police chiefs.

Professional Training is providing training to professionals on domestic violence issues, such as how to identify victims, refer victims, dynamics of domestic violence.

Public Education is raising awareness of participants to domestic violence issues (DV101).

Professional Training would be training your participants on how to deal with victims they may encounter—issues they specifically should be aware of when they are working their own client groups and how domestic violence may impact that population.

Any activities your program wishes to track for any board.

You should document the amount of time your staff spend providing the training—NOT time spent attending training. Time spent attending a training hosted by your agency or outside of your agency may be documented in the Other Staff Activities section, if your agency wishes to track that information, but this is not required.

If your agency is creating a product, such as print ad, PSA; etc., it should be entered on the Media/Publications tab of the database. If staff are presenting on a TV show or answering questions on a radio show, those activities would be entered on the Services tab of the database under the appropriate Public Education service category.

The amount of time spent on hotline calls should be documented in minutes, not hours. This is the only section in InfoNet where the quarter-hour system is not used.

If an existing client calls the hotline, document it as one call, with Call Type = Hotline - has client ID. If 15 minutes or is spent with that client, you would also document that time in that client’s Direct Client Services Section as the most appropriate service – usually Telephone Counseling.

If the staff person answering the hotline calls is supported by VOCA and/or VAWA funds, you must enter that person’s aggregate data separately from other staff’s aggregate data.

Otherwise technically yes, you may aggregate the data for the purposes of InfoNet reporting. Remember that this may make it hard for your organization, the coalition, etc. to get an accurate sense of trends and needs, as aggregating by month will make it impossible to identify say if certain days in the month were unexpectedly busy or calm (e.g. holidays).

This is not required, but if your agency wishes to track this information, enter this under ServicesOther Staff Activities. If you do not see “On-Call Hours” as an option in the Other Staff Activity drop-down menu, you may add it by clicking Administration  Lookup Lists  Other Staff Activities. Remember that if staff and/or volunteers respond to and serve victims during an on-call shift, those hours should be entered as direct client services.

You may edit existing activities, but it can become increasingly challenging over time. Editing to correct spelling of an activity is fine. However, never edit one activity to reflect a different activity. For example, editing “Data Entry” to “Strategic Planning” will change all existing past records accordingly. In addition, you cannot delete any activity that has a record tied to it. You must find those records and edit or delete them before InfoNet will allow you to delete an activity. This protects any data entered under the activity you are attempting to delete.

Yes, but remember that as information you want to track becomes more specific and detailed, the more data entry is required. Before adding a very specific activity to your Lookup List, ask yourself how knowing this information in the future will benefit the program. If you can answer this question, then it may be worthwhile to spend extra time tracking the information. Programs should always consider benefits of having more data in addition to the amount of extra resources that will be required to not only collect but also use that data when making these decisions.

No. If no data are entered, then Turn Away report will indicate that your agency did not turn away any victims during the report period.

You may wait until the end of the month to enter all turn away data at the same time. However, consider that you will not be able to extract daily turn away information from InfoNet. If you enter monthly, you will only be able to extract monthly totals on the turn away report. Additionally, monthly data entry will remove the ability to know the number of families turned away; only the numbers of adults and children turned away can be reported.

See also Tool for Evaluating InfoNet Reports: Client Information and Services developed by IDHS.

Contact the InfoNet help desk at 312-793-8550 or CJA.InfonetHelp@illinois.gov. ICJIA staff can generate a custom query for you.

Separate logins (user name and password) for each location are required to extract data for each location/site managed by your program. When entering services for each location, log in using the corresponding location’s user name and password.

Then when running a report, select the appropriate location(s). This allows you to run a report for each location individually, all locations collectively, or any combination thereof.

If your program has multiple locations and would like this ability, but does not currently have it, contact the InfoNet help desk at 312-793-8550 or CJA.InfonetHelp@illinois.gov to discuss.

Yes. Run a Management Report > Orders of Protection Report based on the OP’s expiration date field. This report will display all OPs scheduled to expire during the time period you specified.

Note that future dates are acceptable for this report, and this can be an excellent tool for following up with clients who have an OP expiring soon.

If you have a primary victim of domestic violence who is a teen, you may have opened that client as an adult even if she was only 13, 14, 15, etc. She would show up in the “adult” column as a 13 yr old, 14 yr old, etc. On other occasions, younger children may be entered as adults if they are provided service without a related adult receiving service. If neither of these are the case, you may have data entry errors.

Run a Management > Client Detail Information Report for the same time period. Apply a Client Type=Adult filter and an Age 0- 17 filter to see the ID numbers of these clients.

Any client entered under the wrong client type is an error and should be corrected.

Run Standard Reports > Service/Programs. The last table of this report displays service information for only volunteers.

For this table to be accurate, however, volunteers must have been entered on the Administration > Volunteer tab.

If you are not sure that all your volunteers were entered on this tab, you have a second option. Run Standard Reports > Service/Programs using the Staff filter. Make sure you select all the volunteer names/groups to be included in the filter.

Standard Reports > Medical/CJ Report > Order of Protection Report > filtered by County.

Please note that this report will filter records based on the client’s county of residence, NOT the county court in which the OP was filed. In most instances, the number will be accurate because most victims file for an OP in the same county they live in.

However, there may be instances when a client files for an OP in a different county court. If this causes concern and you need a report that displays the number of OPs by the county court they were filed in, contact ICJIA’s Help Desk at 312-793-8550 or CJA.InfonetHelp@illinois.gov.

Numbers of Orders of Protection filed (by status) and OPs issued (by type) during the reporting period are displayed in the first section of the report (New Orders of Protection), whether they were subsequently upgraded or not.

Numbers of existing OPs that were upgraded during the reporting period are displayed in the second section of the report by the type of upgrade (Upgrade in the Type of Order).

Standard Reports > Services/Programs > Direct Client Services > filtered by County.

To obtain the duplicate client count for a specific period, you must run a Client Information Report (Demographics only) for each month (or quarter) within the period and add the number of total clients served among all the reports. These totals will give you the duplicated client count for a given period of time.

No, because the numbers reflect different things. Direct Client Service reports the total number of service hours provided to clients under each ID number. Community, Institutional and Group Services reflects presentation (or session) length time and staff time spent on those group sessions. For example, if two staff persons co-facilitate a 1-hour Adult Group Counseling session to five (5) clients:

• In the Direct Client Service section of the report, you will see five (5) Adult Group Counseling hours, because five (5) clients received an hour of service. Five (5) clients x one (1) hour = five (5) client service hours.

• In the Community, Institutional and Group Services section, you will see one (1) Presentation Hour because this represents the session length no matter how many clients attended or how many staff facilitated the session. You will also see two (2) Staff Conduct Hours because even though the group service lasted just one (1) hour, two (2) staff persons provided service for that full hour.

This should only occur if a Funding Filter is applied to a report. For example, if a VAWA grant pays for 33% of a staff person’s service time, a Standard Service Report with a VAWA filter will display .33 hours for every hour of service this person provided. If you are seeing this even when no funding filters are applied, please contact the ICJIA help desk for assistance at 312-793-8550 or CJA.InfonetHelp@illinois.gov.

Yes, if the report’s timeframe is for one year or less. If the report is for one year or less, and you see a greater number of cases than number of clients, then someone may have mistakenly added a new case for a client when they should not have. Remember that you should not enter an additional case for a client unless that person has not received services in at least one year.

To delete unnecessary cases, contact ICJIA for assistance at 312-793-8550 or CJA.InfonetHelp@illinois.gov.

If the report reflects activity for more than one year, the number of cases may be slightly higher than the number of clients because some clients may have more than one case. If you served a client that had two cases, both cases may be counted, but she would only be counted as one client (one person served).

A It is possible that a client that has an On- or Off-Site Shelter or Transitional Housing service for the period, but no documented direct services, such as counseling or advocacy. To identify such clients, run a ManagementClient Detail Information Report with the Service Name box checked. Scroll down and look for a client ID number with only one service contact that is a Shelter or Transitional Housing service. These are clients that probably should have additional service contacts entered under their record, as most clients in shelter are also receiving some direct services. The following are common sources of these error types:

• Did you document any infants in shelter that never had a direct client service documented? Remember that time spent doing an intake on an infant should be entered under the child’s ID number as Individual Children’s Counseling. If you documented the client as being in shelter and no other service was provided, the client would be counted in the Client Information Report as being served, but would not be counted in the Direct Client Service report subtotal for receiving services. Run the Exception Report > Open and Lengthy Shelter Entries. This may help identify clients that left shelter and never updated with a Shelter End Date.

• Were any On- or Off-Site Shelter records entered by mistake? If you entered On- or Off-Site Shelter for a client not currently receiving services, then they would be counted as receiving shelter but have no other direct client services for the period.

A client intake is information collected to document the client’s profile at the time of intake into the program. Sexual assault service provider agencies are required to use ICASA-approved intake forms. Sample forms may be obtained from ICASA or at https://icjia.illinois.gov.

In addition, agencies may create their own data collection forms and request ICASA approval before use.

Agency information is entered as part of the initial connection to InfoNet. After that, only major information, such as name or address changes, will need updating.

No. Instead, locate the resigning staff member’s or volunteer’s record in the Administration >Staff section of the database and enter a termination date. When adding a new staff member, always click the Add button and start from a blank screen. If you replace the name of the resigning staff member with a new person’s name, you will remove any reference to the resigning staff member for the data already entered under that name. When someone leaves your program, enter a termination date. If that person returns to the program, remove the termination date. The staff member will be added to the drop-down menus again.

Locate the staff member’s record in Administration > Staff Information, change the last name, and click the Update button.

Yes. Enter a new funding statement every July 1 to reflect the new fiscal year funding information. It may not be necessary to update the information in the statement if it remains the same as in the previous fiscal year, but you should add a new statement anyway. This ensures you will always have a clean fiscal year of accurate funding information.

You should add a new statement and make appropriate revisions any time you have turnover in staff positions, when there is a shift in how staff are funded, or when there is a shift in staff’ responsibilities. It is required that you make these revisions for your VOCA and/or VAWA positions, but should also be made with other funding sources if the funder requires grant specific information. It is important to make these revisions at the time they occur.

Yes, if funded staff are providing services at each location.

When ICASA secures new funding sources or grants for agency services, the sources are added to Infonet by administrators. Otherwise, individual agencies decides what their local needs are. However, you should think critically before editing your lists. You want the lists to be specific to your local need, but not so specific that you won’t be able to use the options in the long term. Once you add an entry to a list, it is very difficult to remove.

No. Your agency may determine the extent to which to use this function.

First you must terminate the staff/volunteer in the AdministrationStaff Information (or Volunteer Information) section of the database. Then, add a new funding statement (AdministrationFunding for Staff), assign the Date Effective as the date the staff person was terminated, click on the Edit Staff List button, and remove the staff/volunteer name from the new funding statement. If her termination date is before the new funding statement effective date, Infonet should have already removed her. Also remember to add the person replacing the terminated staff person if necessary.

Make sure the staff person is entered in Administration > Staff Information. If the staff person is there, confirm that there is nothing entered in the Termination Date field. Also, verify the persons start date and ensure it is on or before the effective date of your new funding statement.

Only Client ID, Age, Race, Sex and First Contact Date are mandatory. Collection of additional information varies by agency. Check with your agency director to ensure consistent collection and recording of data for your agency. Unknown and blank data fields should be kept to a minimum. Many of the intake data fields are not required but are useful for program development and for developing comprehensive service plans for clients.

You may design your own numbering system to assign client ID numbers. However, your program’s 2-letter code should be used at the beginning of the number and a V or S at the end of the ID number to represent victims or significant others, respectively.

For any victim’s child, before the S at the end of the significant other ID, you must also enter the letter that corresponds to the child’s age order (i.e. as would be for the oldest Child, bS would be for the next-oldest child, cS would be for the next-oldest, etc.).

Absolutely not!

No client identifiers (such as name, initials, birth date, social security number, etc.) should be part of her ID number.

Intake information should correspond to the victim’s situation at the time of intake and should not be changed over time, even as his/her situation changes. You should only update intake information with information obtained after the first contact with a client or to correct previously entered information.

To edit a client’s intake information, view the client’s record, edit the blank, incorrect or unknown fields, and then save the new information. Only the following information should be updated: referrals, services needed/received, residence, and offender information.

Agency policy should dictate when a client file should be closed.

Yes.

The county in which the client resides at the time of intake. For example, if your client is from Christian County but moves to Sangamon County upon intake, you would document Sangamon County as the client’s county of residence, not Christian County.

Use the option High School Grad.

You cannot delete a client; however, you can edit the Client ID number to indicate that it is a bad record. First, edit the Client ID number by clicking the Edit button adjacent to where the Client ID # is displayed in the lower left corner. Then, edit the Client ID # to something to indicate it is an obsolete record, e.g. BAD ID 1. Then, you must make sure that no service contacts are entered for this record. If such records exist, you can go to the Direct Services page and delete them. Then, this obsolete record will not show up on standard or management reports as a client who was served, so it will not affect your numbers.

If you want to rid the obsolete record completely, you can overwrite this bad record with a new client’s information. When the next new client comes in, do the following instead of adding a new Adult as usual: 1) View the bad client record; 2) Edit the Client ID # to reflect the new clients ID #; and 3) Proceed to overwrite EVERY field with the new client’s information. Remember to also update any data entered in the Medical/Criminal Justice, Offenders and in the Services Section.

You cannot delete the client. First, you must make this an obsolete record by editing the Client ID # to something like “BAD ID 1.” Make sure no service contacts are entered for this record. If any service contacts exist, delete them. Then, open a new record under the correct client type and enter this client’s information. You may subsequently overwrite this obsolete record with a new client as described in the previous answer above.

Enter 0 (zero) as the age.

Enter -1 as the age. However, if you have a reasonable estimate of the client’s age, enter the approximate value. It is better to have the client fall within an age range on the report rather than to have several Unknown ages for clients.

Select Not Applicable

Open the victim’s intake information and click the Offender button, then go to the Police and/or States Attorney charge data entry forms and to enter the information.

You should use .25-hour increments. 15 minutes equals .25-hours; 30 minutes equals .5-hours; 45 minutes equals .75 hours.

Yes, but first you must enter the contractual person in the Administration > Staff Information section of the database using their own first and last names. If you want it to be displayed that this is a contractual person versus a permanent employee, you may edit that information into the client’s first name. For example, if John Smith was hired to do contractual work, you might enter his last name as Smith and his first name as John (Contractual). If you enter his name this way, it will always be clear to whoever is entering or viewing data in InfoNet that this is a contractual staff person.

What service should I use to document time I spend doing a child’s intake with the adult client? What if I am completing multiple children’s intakes with the adult client is it Group or In-Person Counseling?

See Group Services Section.

If you wish to track no shows and cancellations for services, you may do this on the Services > Direct Client Services > No Show/Cancellation tab. Do not document hours of service for the time you waited for the client if a service is not provided (i.e. client doesn’t show up at court). Simply enter a No Show record and make a note in the client’s paper file.

If you wish to track no shows and cancellations for services, you may do this on the Services > Direct Client Services > No Show/Cancellation tab.

Do not document hours of service for the time you waited for the client if a service is not provided (i.e. client doesn’t show up at court). Simply enter a No Show record and make a note in the client’s paper file.

Go to Services > Group Services and enter the group session indicating the Conduct Hours for each staff person on the right side of the screen.

If both staff co-facilitated during the whole session, both staff should receive one Conduct Hour. Remember, total session hours documented for staff should match the length of the session (one hour).

Document Family Counseling sessions in Services > Group Services for both the victim and significant others files, no matter whether the victim is an adult or a child.

Each significant other who receives Family Counseling should be a client entered into InfoNet as a significant other, even if family counseling is the only service received by a significant other.

Once you save the record, a message will appear asking you if you want to add attendees. Click OK and the Attendees tab will open. If you have entered and saved the group session information and then left that section of the database, you will need to go back into the Group Services tab and search for the correct group session record. Click on the Attendees tab and add your attendees from the Available Clients list.

Most likely, the ID number is not showing up in the Available Clients list because the search criteria used to create that list are too narrow and are eliminating that client. The default search criteria displays a list of clients who received any type of group service within the last 90 days. Client who never received a group service before will not appear in the default list.

• If there are dates entered in the Group Service Date fields, does the client have a group service already entered in that date range? If not, remove the dates from the Group Service Date fields entirely and use one of the other search fields, such as First Contact Date, Client ID, or Client Type.

• If you cannot find your client in the Available Clients list after several attempts, try searching with all the fields left blank. This will produce a list of all clients ever served by your agency. The list will be long, but Client IDs will be listed in alphanumeric order so you should be able to find the client you are looking for fairly easily.

Public Education is raising awareness of participants to sexual assault issues. Professional Training involves providing information to participants that help improve their skills for working with victims–issues they should specifically be aware of, and how sexual assault may impact that population.

Collect information on ICASA board activities, including time spent, in the Other Staff Activities section.

:You should document the amount of time your staff spent providing the training.

Time spent attending a training may be documented in the Other Staff Activities section if your agency wishes to track that information.

If your agency is creating a product, such as print ad, PSA; etc., it should be entered on the Media/Publications tab of the database. If staff are presenting on a TV show or answering questions on a radio show, those activities would be entered on the Services tab of the database under the appropriate Public Education service category.

On-call hours can be documented at Services > Other Staff Activities.

Remember those hours should be documented as a direct client service if staff and volunteers are responding to and serving victims during the shift.

You may edit existing entries, but it becomes increasingly difficult to do as time passes. Before doing so, you must consider previous records tied to that entry before editing. Editing to correct spelling of an entry is fine, but you never want to edit one activity to reflect a different activity, because that would change all the existing records tied to former activity. In addition, you will not be able to delete any activity that has a record tied to it, unless you find those records and edit or delete them before doing so. This is to protect any data that may have been entered under the old activity you assigned to the drop down list.

It’s possible to break out the data by each fundraising event by using the List Editor, but the number of activities you may assign in the drop down list is limited. Therefore, you may be limiting yourself for other staff activities in this section. Programs should also consider the tediousness of data collection/data entry of such detailed work vs. the benefit you will see from this extra effort.

Separate logins (user name and password) for each location are required to extract data for each location managed by your program. When entering services for each location, log in using the corresponding location’s user name and password. Then when running a report, select the appropriate location. This allows you to run a report for each location individually, all locations collectively, or any combination thereof.

Run Standard Reports > Service/Programs.

The last table in this report reflects volunteer activity. You may also use the staff filter to filter the report for all volunteer names.

Since InfoNet reports do not duplicate client counts, to obtain the duplicate client count for a specific period, run one report for each month in that period and add the number of new and ongoing clients in each month. These totals will give you the duplicated client count for a given period of time.

No, InfoNet should not be installed off-site.

Yes. Contact Jennifer Hiselman to make those arrangements at (312) 793-8689 or jennifer.hiselman@illinois.gov.