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On Thursday 22 February HSNet held an expo in our Sydney premises featuring Client Management Systems that have the capability of interfacing with the e-Referral feature of ServiceLink. The expo was held primarily to assist NGOs approved for the CMS Subsidy to choose a system that will meet their needs. A number of larger human services NGOs also sent representatives to the expo. A total of 72 representatives from over 50 organisations attended.

After a welcome from HSNet Manager, Maree Callinan, the CMS vendors each gave 50 minute presentations on their systems throughout the day. The expo also included a trade fair space where NGOs could approach vendors and discuss their needs and ask questions about the capabilities of the systems.

Five of the seven compliant vendors participated on the day:

• Community Ventures and Alliances Pty Ltd (CMS: PLACE)
• Database Consultants Australia (CMS: The Care Manager TCM)
• Hyro Pty Ltd (CMS: Athena)
• Third Sector Software (CMS: The Non-Profit Activity Information System (N-PAIS)
• Shared Web Services Pty Ltd (CMS: FlowConnect)

HSNet would like to thank all who participated in this very successful day.

A much smaller expo was held in Armidale on Monday 5 March. HSNet would like to thank David Smith from Database Consultants Australia (CMS: The Care Manager TCM) and Sonya Rice from Community Ventures and Alliances Pty Ltd (CMS: PLACE) for participating in this regional expo.

The third NSW NGO Mental Health conference, ‘Count Me In’, provided the HSNet team with a fantastic opportunity to promote the benefits of the HSNet web site and its tools to mental health workers from across the state.
 
During the two day conference the HSNet staff members were able to interact with conference delegates at the exhibition fair, supply HSNet material, register new users and provide live demonstrations to showcase the features of the site.

We are finding that HSNet's usage is greatly increasing, indicating that it's providing more useful resources and support networks to NSW human services workers. For example, the number of pages viewed by users accessing the HSNet web site currently stands at 61,819 for March compared to 32,958 in January, almost double the usage over the last three months.

One of the most active topics is 'Support to Mental Health and Dual Diagnosis clients', posted in the Non-Government Organisations group, which has been viewed by 904 HSNet members with 15 replies posted.

March 11 to 18 was NSW Seniors Week, with many events run across the state. HSNet has been making sure the coverage of services for seniors in ServiceLink is comprehensive, by adding information from the Seniors Information Service (or SIS). SIS is run by DADHC, and will be using ServiceLink to inform callers about human services in NSW. The SIS is available during business hours on 13 12 44.

When posting a new topic under group forums, it is good practice to enter a meaningful description in the topic heading field which should reflect the details that are posted.

Topic headings in group forums should reflect the content of your topic. A descriptive phrase is more likely to be useful and enticing to the reader.

A good example would be a posted topic highlighting the cleanup of inactive HSNet users, which has been given a topic heading of 'Cleanup of HSNet user’. This helps to make it easier for the reader to select only the topic most relevant to them when they receive email notifications about updates, and while browsing the group forum.

HSNet would like to thank Sarah Fogg from The Benevolent Society for sharing this tip related to topic headings in group forums. If you would like to contribute a handy tip that can be shared with all HSNet users, please email hsnet@hsnet.nsw.gov.au

Our first HSNet workshop was held on Friday 24 March with eleven participants in attendance for the two sessions. Feedback received from the participants about the workshop was very positive.

The next workshop will be held on Friday 4 May at Bligh House in Sydney. Participants will have a ‘hands on’ opportunity to discover the resources available through HSNet. We can accommodate up to seven participants per session and workshops are free of charge.

Over the Easter break the HSNet team and Service Desk will be unavailable from Friday 6 April to Monday 9 April. Normal services will be resuming from the Tuesday 10 April.

We bid a fond farewell to Conor Holmes, who was with the HSNet for last few months updating Department of Health records in ServiceLink. We wish Conor all the best in his future endeavours and would like to say a big Thank You for the tremendous effort he has put in to entering and improving Health Outlets and services maintained by HSNet.

Human Services Network
Level 3, Bligh House
4-6 Bligh Street
SYDNEY NSW 2000

Telephone: 02 9228 4200
Fax: 02 9228 3024
Email: hsnet@hsnet.nsw.gov.au 
OR for any ServiceLink enquiries please email servicelink.content@hsnet.nsw.gov.au