The Children’s Action Plan (CAP)* was established in 2015 and introduced fundamental changes to how government agencies, iwi and nongovernment organisations worked together at national and local levels, to identify, support and protect vulnerable children.
Major stakeholders in the approach included Ministry of Social Development, Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Education, the New Zealand Police, and the Ministry of Health.
Children’s Teams were established as a key element of the Children’s Action Plan.
They respond at the earliest possible point to address the needs of vulnerable children and their families. Practitioners and professionals in multiple agencies bring together existing services for vulnerable children into one personalised plan for each child and their family/whānau.
Datacom has contributed to this child-centred approach by partnering with CAP to create and support a customised case management system that aims to meet the needs of every vulnerable child.
The Vulnerable Kids Information System (ViKI) is designed to provide information in a timely and secure manner using a collaboration service implemented on the Dynamics CRM platform. This foundational platform was built with minimal customisations, on which future enhancements to the service could be added.
Datacom was chosen to deliver and maintain all underlying infrastructure, hosting and support required to deliver the service, on a consumptionbased ‘as-a-Service’ model.
The ViKI solution was delivered in just eight months. Using an agile development approach, Datacom was able to leverage its internal specialist skillsets, collaborating with multiple parties to meet hosting, access and high security requirements. Datacom safely manages the system on CAP’s behalf, which means ViKI now functions with minimal internal support, leaving CAP to focus on its mission.
Datacom has delivered a true end-to-end solution, with community professionals able to refer vulnerable children via an online web form. Referrals are then triaged and individual child cases transferred to Children's Teams.
Beyond the solution build, Datacom also provided classroom and video training to ViKI’s users around New Zealand, leveraging its expert Learning & Change Solutions Team (LCS). The team designed the training strategy, delivered the training solutions and have now implemented, with the Children’s Teams, a train the trainer strategy which ensures each site has dedicated trainers.
CAP’s aspirational goal of implementing Children’s Teams by the end of 2017 means that ViKI is now expanding from supporting four to ten Children’s Teams.
Datacom, as the Children’s Teams’ long-term partner, continues to deliver, manage, support and enhance the entire ViKI system, and are an active party in the development of their business capability and productivity.
* Children’s Action Plan (CAP) is now referred to as Children’s Teams within Oranga Tamariki