CHAIN redevelopment

CHAIN is being redeveloped and we want to keep users up to-date with the progress so far.

The aim of the project is to deliver a redeveloped CHAIN system which improves data quality, reporting and recording to assist in ending rough sleeping. he benefits of the new system will include:

• More effective ways of recording and reporting on information such as hostel, prison, and hospital stays
• Ensuring that wherever possible more information is collected about where people were staying before rough sleeping in London  
• Providing more sophisticated levels of access to ensure that people can access the right level of information for their role, for example an 'aggregate-only' view of data for those who do not need access to individual's details
• Reducing ongoing maintenance and development costs of CHAIN.
  

A summary of progress as at January 2010

• Managers of all CHAIN inputting projects were invited by the CHAIN team to a seminar in July 2009 where ideas for the new system were freely shared.  Many of these ideas were incorporated into the specifications.
  
• Managers from the CHAIN team and an outreach worker spent two days in October talking through every aspect of the system with the team from Astadia who are now building the database.
  
• Thank you to all those who responded to the online survey about the new system. Your feedback has been reported to the steering group and is helping us in our development plans.
  
• A small steering group consisting of representatives from CLG, St Mungos, City of Westminster and Broadway are overseeing the project. 
  
• The CHAIN development manager (Ian Shenstone) and the project manager for the LINK redevelopment at Homeless Link (Val Cohen) are working on a mechanism to ensure data can continue to be shared between CHAIN and LINK.
  
• The CHAIN team have developed a communication plan to ensure that CHAIN stakeholders are consulted, informed and trained at the right times. Recent activities have included attending the Homeless Link Practitioners Group, undertaking a survey of users and getting feedback from teams about support needs information on CHAIN. Future plans include recruiting a Super User Group of people who use CHAIN regularly to help us bed the new system in and plan for the future.      

• Overall you told us that you want an easy to use and fast system which gives managers the flexibility to run the reports they need to report to funders and manage teams work. Most of those who responded find that the current CHAIN is pretty fast and user-friendly but there is room for improvement. More details about how users felt the system could be improved were reported in the CHAIN update in November 2009.