12 minutes
What coordination is for Separate the coordination that lifts load off a person from the coordination that quietly hands it back.
What you’ll be able to do Explain the purpose of coordination in terms of what the person no longer has to carry, and identify three routine practices that transfer load rather than absorb it. Compare the responses to this question and explain your choice: What is the most accurate reading of what occurred? Document a next step for What coordination is for: Look at the last three referrals you made and count how many actions each left with the person. The integration point Services are organized by funding, authority and program, and a person's life is not. Somewhere the two have to meet. Coordination is the decision that the meeting point will be a role inside the system rather than the person themselves.
When coordination is working, the person experiences fewer separate relationships than the number of services they receive. When it is not working, the person experiences more: they become the one who remembers what each office needs, repeats their story, notices when something has not happened, and calls to ask why. That is a job. It is usually unpaid, usually invisible in any record, and falls hardest on people who have the least capacity to hold it.
Signs the person has become the integration point They can describe the process better than the staff who administer parts of it.
They are the only one who knows what every involved office is waiting for.
They repeat the same personal history to four people in a month.
They are the one who notices that a step was missed.
A change in one service reaches the others only because the person mentioned it.
When they stop making calls, the whole arrangement stops.
Absorbed load or transferred load? The coordinator places the call while the person is present and hands over once the other office is on the line.
Choose a category Absorbed Transferred The person is given a list of three agencies to contact.
Choose a category Absorbed Transferred The coordinator sends the assessment already on file so the person is not asked for it again.
Choose a category Absorbed Transferred The person is asked to bring the same documents they provided at intake.
Choose a category Absorbed Transferred The coordinator confirms the appointment was made and tells the person the date.
Choose a category Absorbed Transferred The person is told to follow up if they do not hear anything within two weeks.
Choose a category Absorbed Transferred Check matches Reset Count the asks, not the contacts What you can change You control what your team counts as a completed referral. Counting contacts made rewards volume; counting actions left with the person rewards coordination.
What to watch for Do not treat a list of resources as a service delivered. It is a service offered, and the difference shows up entirely in outcomes you do not see.
Your next step At your next team meeting, ask everyone to bring one referral and count the actions it left with the person.
Carry this forward Coordination exists so that the person does not have to be the integration point between services that do not talk to each other.
A referral that ends with the person holding a phone number has moved work, not done it.
The measure of coordination is not how many contacts were made but how many actions the person still has to take.
A sort separating absorbed load from transferred load, a scenario and a knowledge check.
Look at the last three referrals you made and count how many actions each left with the person.
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Course overview Next lesson Participation and course completion in this program do not count toward DHS-required training credits unless management, a director, or DHS leadership expressly approves an exception.
