12 minutes
An intake review you can run Review what your process asks about adversity and change one question.
What you’ll be able to do Complete an intake review of one form or process and produce one changed question with a named owner. Compare the responses to this question and explain your choice: What do you propose? Draft Intake review for your work, including form and history questions, what each answer changes, who sees it; will it be asked again. A form is a policy A form is completed by everyone who enters a service, so a question on it is a decision about what every one of those people will be asked. That makes the form the highest-leverage place to change practice. One history question removed, or one present-need question added, changes the intake of every person who follows. The review is short because forms are worth reviewing often.
The five questions List every question on the form that asks about the person's past: abuse, neglect, trauma, placement, family history.
For each, what does a different answer change about the plan, the service or the approach? Write it down. If nothing, mark the question.
For each, who sees the answer, and will the person have to say it again to the next worker or the next service?
What present-need question could replace each marked one: what helps, what to avoid, whom to involve, whether to warn before change?
What is the one change you will propose, to whom, and by when?
Intake review One page that lists every history question on a form, what each changes, and the one change proposed.
Form and history questions Each question listed
What each answer changes Plan, service, approach, or nothing
Who sees it; will it be asked again For each
Present-need replacements For each question that changes nothing
One change, one owner, one date Proposed to the form's owner
Run it on one form and send the change to its owner.
Browse and download only. Staff notes are not typed or saved on this page.
Download this published draft Change the form, not the worker What you can change You control whether a finding about a question becomes a note to workers about asking sensitively or a change to the form. The form change reaches everyone; the note reaches whoever reads it.
What to watch for Do not let a question survive because removing it requires approval. Approval is one email; the question is asked hundreds of times.
Your next step Send one proposed question change to a form owner this month.
Present-need questions that work "What helps you feel comfortable somewhere new?"
Produces things the service can do on the first day: a quiet space, a familiar person, a written plan, time.
"Is there anything we should avoid?"
Produces the specific: a tone, a topic, a kind of touch, a time of day. Without requiring the reason.
"Who do you want involved, and who not?"
Produces the boundary the service most often crosses by default: contacting family, sharing with providers.
"Do you want to know before something changes?"
Almost everyone says yes. The service can then do it.
Carry this forward The review asks, for each question about the person's past, what the answer changes, who sees it, and whether the person will have to say it again.
Most forms contain at least one question that fails the test and one place where a present-need question would serve the person better.
One question changed on a form that hundreds of people complete is a larger change than most practice improvements.
A list of the review's questions, an artifact, a scenario decision and a knowledge check.
Run the review on one form this month and send the changed question to whoever owns the form.
Browse and download only. Course notes are not typed or saved on this page.
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