The Nightmare Called OASys

Seen on Facebook:-

So how do people hit 10 day Eoasys quality and quantity targets with high caseloads?! Do I go back to a time I bullet pointed everything-how do we hit these targets whilst ensuring we care for our clients prior to losing our own marbles....?
As a trainee I lose two of those ten days due to study leave.....

Full interview of all sections at first visit after sentence. Start EOASys. If you can't finish it in your contractual 37hrs in the week, you just have to take it home and do it in your own time. QA's are back. Lol

I can do that in 20 mins, inexperienced staff an hour! We are tiered hours per case! Not employment hours.

The MoJ have basically ensured that you consider using closed questions within an assessment to ensure you hit your timings. If you don't use closed questions you open yourself out to failure despite hitting quality....the fools with the tools make the rules

We have been told we can do layer 1 assessments if they are low risk .

CRCS hold the most fluid risk cases. SFO'S will come from low to medium risk cases. In that scenario your assessment will be torn apart. Sorry but that's the horrible truth.

Maybe but if the directive has come from them and there were no obvious risk factors then you can defend a layer 1. The reality is that a full oasys on every case is not viable anymore. Sad but true. Plus aren't CRCs supposed to be getting rid of oasys?

Yep, we thought we were getting rid of Eoasys!!! But someone couldn't read a contract and its here to stay....all cases within 10 days. I refer to my previous answer=agile idiots.

But OASYS won't allow a layer 1 for prison releases.

Doesn't allow a layer 1 for previous ROSH either!

In the NPS we only have ten days too

But what happened to these pro judgement standards we were promised!!!! These are contract measures based on monetary value not risk!

Ten days is crap. Like u say money driven

You forget - for high risk we used to have 5 days from sentence. A 10 day target (remembering this is from the first time we see them, not disposal) gives much more time to complete ISP and RMP. And I wouldn't want a high risk service user running around in the community for any longer without a robust risk management plan in place.

--oo00oo--

I am still looking for a definitive definition of 'Agile Working'. For 12 months I have asked managers this but to no avail. I ask this because since the split we CRCs were told that new IT would allow us to outreach more within the community! However, as a result of Grayling's promises of unshackling creativity I am stuck at my desk more so than I have ever been in 20 years! Processing and churning out assessments whilst being told I've limited hours to work with DV and IOM clients. Time that includes the processing of Eoasys assessments! Therefore I now consider the definition of 'Agile Working' to mean I will be directed to cover other Offices that have staff shortages, as well as the impact on my back as I crouch over a small laptop screen! I will also be stating that I am not a qualified health and safety at work assessor and an online course does not cater to my learning style. I would go even further and state that such a course discriminates against AT users as they are excluded, due to the majority of CRC IT being inaccessible for them to use, one such user is handwriting her notes so admin can then scan them onto the system!

I had no system for 4 weeks!!!! This is a mess

And now as of 1630hrs yesterday we are presented with the eoasy 10 day ISP target! People will be sacked due to having no personal development support. People will be placed into capability despite having 100+ cases.

Same as us, oasys as of last month has to be done in 10 days despite no laptops working

Sack us all for failure to meet targets then employ new staff on a lower wage..... That's what I'm foreseeing.

SFO'S await. But the targets and contracts are set by MOJ. That says it all-they want us to fail, they want an SFO....

Complete madness

Not really if you equate making money out of people's misery. That's capitalism.

It all sounds chaotic, I don't know how you stand it!

I ask that same question, most say they can't afford to lose their job.

And when you have a commitment to this work it's difficult to imagine how what you could replace it with, even if you had the choice!

I agree but in time this vocation is being diluted. In this environment you need to realise what skills you have. I don't like what I say but I say it to survive.

That's the worst aspect of the decimation of public services - the way that it compromises the workers' integrity. The skills should be transferable to other types of social work but there is plenty of malarkey going on there as well. Meanwhile the clients need you. I am lucky to be retired; was 'restructured' 4 times; total nightmare.

Should have said that I am in New Zealand, but I started out in London (child protection) and Probation (1979) which I remember with great respect and affection.

I agree, I speak to highly trained People who have no idea what skills they possess. They just say 'what else can I do', a bit like me!

Any New Zealand jobs going? lol. There maybe an influx if you say yes, it's that bad!!!!!!

It is just as bad here, we have had a neo-liberal govt. for two terms, though not as brutal as UK. As far as I can see both child protection and probation spend most of their time on the computer. I think any kind of social work is anathema to Tories; it does not fit the ideology. We have had years of enquiries, investigations, new policies and procedures, evidence based, ecological, systemic etc. Sound familiar? "Child, Youth and Family" if you want to have a look. I have been following a UK site called 'Social Work Tutor', if you haven't seen it. It might be worth a look to see what is going on in other areas of your profession cos there might be some choices in the future. 

In my 3 decades I've been asked a question I can't actually answer: How have you survived? I don't know, all I say to Trainees is what I was told all those years ago: manage your cases, but ask yourself what would a coroner ask you!!!! For the first time ever my answer to that question is at risk due to TR..

NAPO should be collating info on all the barriers to good practice (of which there have been heaps on this page) and putting them in a submission to Gove; he is responsible for the contracts and providers' overall performance.. I don't know how you stand it.

NAPO is dieing....and that's from a member.

I was very near to going for a New Zealand job a decade ago. Believe me, if the role is generic you will have many interested parties. Me included.