Our online intake tool

Justice Connect’s online intake tool provides a cutting edge approach to online intake (the tool is available at help.justiceconnect.org.au). Until the release of the intake tool, most of Justice Connect’s programs ran primarily phone-based intake systems.

The intake tool is driving increased traffic to services, as well as reducing the time spent by staff on intake and triage. The intake tool is not designed to replace phone-based intake, but to make alternative channels available

The intake tool has two key components: a program sorter, and program specific questions. The program sorter asks users seven questions and determines which services a help-seeker should apply for at Justice Connect. The key aim of our Program Sorter is to connect eligible help-seekers with the right Justice Connect program as quickly as possible, and to inform help-seekers if they are ineligible as early as possible.

Each Justice Connect program also has its own tailored intake pathway, which help-seekers can reach directly as well as via the program sorter.

The intake tool has been co-designed with help-seekers and Justice Connect clients over a two year period to ensure that it meets the needs of Justice Connect’s users.

Intake tool impact

The first iteration of the tool was released in August 2018. This has been evaluated, and a second release of the tool is now under development.

Key outcomes of the intake tool’s implementation are:

• traffic to the intake tool is steadily increasing month on month
• time taken to complete the tool remains under 10 minutes on average (much quicker than the 40 minutes taken on average to undertake intake by phone)
• those using the intake tool rate the tool favourably (average of 3.47/5)
• tracking of trends in applications are easier to surface than previously
• staff feel the tool helps to deliver a more professional service with greater consistency of application outcome
• time taken to process applications has dropped between 22 and 44% across programs when compared with phone-based intake

Read our full interim evaluation of our intake tool here: