Church Entered Needs: Getting Started with Step-by-Step Instructions

Overview

This article breaks down how a Church can turn on the ability to submit needs that will be received by their own Response Team members. 

Intended Audience 

Church Leaders

Prerequisites 

• Read and Review Should My Church Use "Church-Entered Needs?"
  
• Add members to your Response Team
• Recommended: CarePortal Advanced Training Module: Church-Entered Needs (found in church dashboard)

This Article Covers

• Designating a Family Advocate
• Enabling Church-Entered Needs
• Submitting A Need: By Response Team
• Submitting A Need: By Family Advocate
• Approving A Need
• Closing a Need

Designating a Family Advocate

Your Church's Primary Point Person will need to login & go to the Settings page. To add the Family Advocate role to a new or current user, click the plus icon to the right of the Church Leaders header.

1. Enter the email address of the user that will be the Family Advocate.  
   • If they are in the system, you can select them from the drop-down and the information we have on file for them should auto-populate. 
   • If they are not in the system you will need to enter their first & last name and provide a valid phone number.
2. You will want to ensure the "System Email" box is checked so that the Family Advocate can receive email notifications regarding CarePortal requests.

Enabling Church-Entered Needs

Now that a Family Advocate has been designated, the Primary Point Person can set Church-Entered Needs to "Yes" within their Church Settings section.

Scroll down to the Church Settings section and select "Yes" and then click the orange "Save" button. You will see a confirmation message at the top of the page stating that the Church settings have been updated successfully.

Submitting A Need: By Response Team

Now that Church Needs have been enabled, any Response Team member can submit a need that will then go to the Family Advocate for approval.

Response Team members can submit a need using your Church's public CarePortal page. The URL to this page is available on the CarePortal Dashboard of any user designated as a Church Leader within CarePortal. If you are a Response Team member please reach out to a Point Person or Family Advocate at your church if you do not have this URL. 

To submit a need from your public Church page please do the following:

1. Navigate to your Church's Public Church page
2. Click the login button and enter the email address that you used to become a member of your Church's Response Team. If you do not know your password, please click here to reset it.
3. After you have successfully logged in, click the "Submit A Need" button
4. You can submit this need on behalf of your own family or another family
5. Fill out the family information form & click continue
   
6. Next, fill out the Need Information form. 
   • Keep in mind that good stories need to have an emotional impact. They also need to have details about what is needed so that responders can accurately see the needs.
   • Never share confidential information, such as names, locations or any contact information of the family within the Story field.
   • Some great questions to consider answering when filling out the story are:
     – Who needs help? Example: A single parent with a young son.  
     – What do they need? Example: A twin bed frame, mattress, and bedding.
     – What will happen when this need is met? Example: This young boy will be able to stay at home with his 
     mother. Without a bed to sleep in the son may have to enter into the foster system. 

Submitting A Need: By Family Advocate

Needs can also be submitted by Church Leaders from within the CarePortal interface. The Family Advocate & Point People can go here to to login & then click on "Church Needs" in the left-hand menu. Click on "+Add Need" under Church Needs at the top of the page, fill out the form and click Submit.

Approving A Need

The Family Advocate is a critical role for churches that are using the Church-Entered Needs feature as they are the only ones who can approve the need. The need must be approved before it will go out via email to your Church's Response Team.

Once a need has been submitted, the Family Advocate will receive an email asking them to review the need. 

 

The Family Advocate can click the link or copy and paste the URL into their browser to review the need. When reviewing the need you will be able to Approve, Decline or Edit the need as necessary. Please review the need for any info confidential information. Once reviewed, click Approve Need to confirm that you would like to send the need out to your Church's Response Team. The need will go out to your Response Team via email in the format below.