Congreso's mission is to strengthen Latino communities through social, economic, education, and health services; leadership development; and advocacy. The organization serves the largely Latino neighborhoods of North Philadelphia. This culturally vibrant community faces issues including poverty, limited access to health care, low educational attainment, and unemployment. Congreso has served these neighborhoods for more than 30 years as a multifaceted, comprehensive provider of human services.
ETO Motivations
Congreso needed to maximize its impact on the communities it serves, measure its performance, and strengthen its programs. The organization has more than 50 programs in place addressing such issues as youth truancy prevention, workforce development, HIV prevention, education, and more. Each Congreso program managed its own data collection, using simple database, spreadsheet, and even word processing software or paper files. This system made management and reporting challenging, and diminished the perceived impact of its dedicated direct service workers.
Success Hurdles
Congreso’s top concerns were centralizing data management, making the data management system flexible and easy to use, and enabling accurate, real-time reporting.
Lessons and Achievements
Social Solutions worked collaboratively with Congreso to develop an integral tool for tracking and analyzing program, client, and agency-wide data. The new tool, Congreso’s Universal Intake and Descriptive Administration Database, or UNIDAD, was implemented in Fall 2003. UNIDAD now represents a crucial step in Congreso’s efforts to achieve its social objectives.
Powered by Social Solutions ETO Software®, UNIDAD allows users to define custom data fields at the agency or program level so that they can collect data important to their specific program as well as meet the general data collection requirements across the agency. UNIDAD users can also create assessments, outcomes and reports based on their unique needs. From a program perspective, UNIDAD allows client participation to be classified as confidential or non-confidential, which ensures data security for programs such as domestic violence or HIV case management, while also giving staff members access to useful client information across programs. The software is internet-based, giving staff secure access to the system from any computer with internet access.
New users are normally able to begin using the software to enter data after only an hour of training. This allows new staff to quickly get up to speed and immediately begin realizing the benefits of the system. ETO provides standard reports that can easily be generated by any user in areas such as enrollments, demographics, outcomes and management. The database also allows the design of customized reports to meet internal or funder requirements. These reports are easy to access and provide real-time information, giving staff the possibility of monitoring the current status of their programs and helping to reinforce the value of the data as they manage their programs.
The value of a tool like UNIDAD can be appreciated in the short and long term. In the short term, program managers and staff have access to real-time data about each of their clients. This information ranges from demographics (addresses and telephone numbers) to case notes or attendance records that document a client’s progress in a program. Staff can review individual or group reports and use this information to identify strengths and weaknesses of the program and make decisions regarding client service. In the long term, program staff have easy access to historical data and reports that allow them to better know and understand their clients and community and thereby address populations that may be underserved.