Making Enquiries

Enquiries are made by completing a form on the Fostering Hub website. The form can also be completed by a member of staff, on behalf of the person making the enquiry.

The initial enquiry form records the applicant's:

• First name
• Last name
• Email address
• Phone number

On page 2 it also optionally records:

• Contact preference
• Preferred day/time to contact
• How the applicant heard about the hub
• The nature of the enquiry (ready to be a foster carer/more information)
• Any additional comments
• The person's address (which may be used to categorise the enquiry by local authority, see How Subtypes Categorise Cases)

If a staff member is completing the form (ie the enquiry has come in via another channel so is being completed on behalf of the applicant), the form also asks for:

• The date of the enquiry
• Who is completing the enquiry form (this will be pre-populated from the staff member's user profile details)
• How the enquiry was received (email, phone, social media, paper, event, other)

If the enquiry was made at an event, and the enquiry will be proceeding straight to an initial visit, the form will ask for the date that the enquiry was referred, and the local authority the event was hosted by.

Enquiries Logged by Staff Users

The enquiry form will only recognise a staff member is filling out the form if they are assisting another user. This happens automatically by following the link "Raise an enquiry" in the "Useful pages" section of the hub:

This will launch the assisting banner:

The enquiry form will include an extra page to record how and when the enquiry was made, and who it is being logged by.

On Submit

When the form is submitted, the following happens:

• An email is sent to the person who made the enquiry, using the email address entered into the enquiry form. The text of this email is set in the Fostering Case Type Configuration
• An enquiry case is raised in Case Management. The case type is called "fostering"
• Where possible, enquiry cases are categorised by local authority, see How Subtypes Categorise Cases for further details
• A one (working) day SLA is assigned to the enquiry. A two-hour reminder is also set. Initial contact should be made within this time
• The enquiry case can be worked on by users in the CM-FOSTERINGHUB user group