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Orange County - CalWIN Success Story

Below are successes documented by CalWORKs South staff:

• CalWIN allows me to view my cases, and it makes it easier to do my stats. It’s a great tool.
• To enter an Activity in CalWIN is easier and faster than GIS.
• I love to read the comments because you can read other staff ’s narrations, but also any entries done in CalWIN by the OSW or, for example, when a sanction is imposed the system automatically generates an entry in the comments.

Sylvia Velasquez – Case Manager

I find the CalWIN system easy to understand and easy to update as needed compared to CDS. I am also more comfortable evaluating and using child support reimbursement to un-tick appropriate months. It is also easier for me to enter exemptions or to end an exemption period in CalWIN.

Michelle Soohoo – OSW

As an Eligibility Technican and new to CalWORKs, CalWIN has helped me to determine aid types for my clients. Another way CalWIN has helped me is through the “Wrap Up-Display Eligibility Summary”. When a case fails, I can find out why it is ineligible with the click of a button. And through the “Individual Details” screen, I can see the budget, the aid codes for each person in the case, and reasons people may be excluded from the assistance unit. This is a great function and makes trouble shooting easier.

LaTrice Champen – Eligibility Technician

The CalWIN Notification system, with its associated access to Disposition Text and the Traffic Monitor’s Record of Office Contact, continues to be a success story for CalWIN users. Whether it is the worker himself/herself, or the Unit Clerk who is receiving the Notification in order to provide an Officer of the Day, all the information necessary to properly prepare to meet with the client for the stated reasons of the visit, are easily and readily available. This enhances the quality of client service we impart in real-time, as well as, supplies us with a withstanding record depicting the reason for the client visit, who saw the client and the specifics of the time lapsed to do so. These record-keeping features allow us to review the service we provided in the past and show us where, if any, improvements for responsiveness are needed.

Mary Hedden - SSO

A client recently called with questions about her case. Because the Worker was out of the office, the call was immediately transferred to me, her Supervisor. I found myself on the phone without any advance preparation for questions from a client and situation unknown to me. Boy, I was glad to find narrations and actions in CalWIN. I didn’t have to ask the client to wait while I went to review the case. The narrations and case actions were immediately available for me to discuss with the client. By the way, there were months of narration and I used the “type” field on the “Search Case Comments” window to narrow my search by function without searching through all the case comments. CalWIN was a real time saver for both the client and me.

Margaret Park - SSSI

CalWIN is so far superior to our previous system with regard to how it calculates family relationships. While using the previous system one needed to enter letter-coded relationships for each member of the household. This was a time consuming and often frustrating process that delayed the delivery of client service. Using CalWIN one selects from a drop down menu and CalWIN logically fills in the remaining relationships. CalWIN saves time at almost every step of the initial and ongoing process. When time is saved on tedious parts of the job, more time can be used to work with clients one on one to move them to self-sufficiency. It is a win-win situation!

Jim Boyd - Case Manager

I really appreciate the Simulation feature in CalWIN. This feature gives me the ability with a few clicks of the mouse, on a drop down menu, to be able to place the entire case in simulation. Once in simulation, you can make any changes to the case you wish, and these changes will only affect the case in simulation not the case in CalWIN. For case reviews this is quite valuable in determining the amount of either over issuances or under issuances in both the Food Stamp and the Cash programs. This feature is also quite handy when trouble shooting a case. To remove the case from simulation is just as easy as entering, just a click of the mouse.

Karen Schneider - SSSI