Service Coordination
Overview of Service Coordination
Young people with multiple and sometimes complex needs will require multiple services from a range of agencies such as schools, youth support, mental health, alcohol and other drugs, disability, employment and other services. This requires a coordinated approach that ensures services work together.
"Service coordination aims to place consumers (young people) at the center of service delivery ensuring that they have access to the services they need, opportunities for early intervention and health promotion and improved health outcomes."
Service Coordination is facilitated by Primary Care Partnerships (PCPs) where agencies come together to agree on how they will coordinate their services and communicate better with each other so young people experience a more holistic care. Service Coordination enables services to function independently while working in a coordinated way to provide shared consumers with a seamless and integrated response.
Service Coordination Principles
Service Coordination is underpinned by the key principles:
- A central focus on consumers (young people)
- Partnerships and collaboration
- The social model of health
- Competent staff
- A duty of care
- Protection of consumer (young person) information
- Engagement of other sectors
- Consistency in practice standards
Benefits of Service Coordination
Benefits for young people:
- Local – young people receive up-to-date information about services in their local area and their support options.
- Faster – young people experience a faster response time for requests and can expect the same standards of service and approach from each organisation.
- Streamlined – young people are supported with the ability to contact the most appropriate service. They experience clear entry points, referral pathways that are easy to navigate, transparent and consistently applied.
- Engaged – young people are supported to be actively engaged in the planning and delivery of services and receive support appropriate to their needs, wishes, circumstances, abilities, safety and cultural background.
- Coordinated – young people can be confident that information will be transferred for the purposes of a referral in a way that doesn’t require them to repeat the information. They also experience a more coordinated response to their needs from a range of service providers.
Benefits for agencies and schools:
- Partnerships – agencies and schools are able to improve their working relationships and networks to identify local issues and problem solving opportunities.
- Common standards - common practice standards clearly document expectations around key areas of practice between agencies, and defined roles and responsibilities are clearly identified.
- Support – agencies and schools have access to resources that support Service Coordination practice, such as common Initial Need Identification Tools and the Youth Directory.
- Engagement - there’s an increased awareness of the need for a continuing focus on consumer engagement and consumer driven decision making.
- Efficiency – agencies will experience efficiencies including improved waiting list management, reduced duplication of assessment services and streamlined referral processes.
- Quality - Service Coordination aligns with accreditation standards for providing quality services and programs, and sustaining quality external relationships