Everything You Need to Know About Response Team Settings

Overview

This article dives into all the settings and features available for each church Response Team on the CarePortal platform. These settings should be enabled and used in a way that allows the Primary Point Person and Team Leaders to lead and disciple their team members as they serve together in their community.

Intended Audience

Church Leaders: Primary Point Person & Team Leaders

Included in This Article

• Adding, Building & Managing Response Teams
• Accessing Response Team Settings by Role
• Response Team Basic Information
• Response Team Settings
  • Quick List of Customizable Settings for Response Teams 
  • New Member Approval Process
  • Auto Activation
  • Respond to Team Leader (or Caseworker)
  • Types of Requests
  • Customizing Your Areas to Serve

Adding, Building & Managing Response Teams

To see step-by-step instructions on how to add a new Response Team, a breakdown of the various ways your church can build and grow your response teams, and a practical guide to leading your team into spiritual maturity as you serve effectively together, please see this article.

Accessing Response Team Settings by Role

• Team Leaders can access these settings in the Settings tab of their Response Team dashboard
• The Primary Point Person can access these settings in their own dashboard's Settings tab with the ability to select any team from the dropdown list to see and make changes as needed. This section for Response Team Settings will be shown under the Church Settings section.
• Pastors, Church Needs Leaders or Connecting Church Leaders for the church can access the Response Team Settings of any team at their church by going to the Response Teams tab and clicking the Edit button for the team they wish to make changes to.

Response Team Basic Information

• Team Name
  The name of your church as it appears here will be exactly how your church name is displayed throughout your CarePortal dashboard, Public Page, Responder Sign-Up Form, and when someone from your church responds to a request. 
• Physical Address
  The address you enter will be used to determine which approved CarePortal requests you'll receive a notification for. Each individual response team can change this address at any time to operate from a different location so they get notified of different requests.
• Team Logo
  The image you select for your team logo will automatically appear in several locations throughout your dashboard and use of the CarePortal platform, including your Public Landing Page and Responder Sign-Up Form. 

Response Team Settings

Quick List of Customizable Settings for Response Teams

• Team Name
• Physical Location
• Response Team Radius
• Request Types (Child-Centered or Disaster Relief)
• Responder Approval Option
• Respond to Team Leader (or Caseworker)

New Member Approval Process

This setting is used when a member signs up from the church or team's Responder Sign-up Form or if they identify your church or team during the process of creating a new account to respond to a request they've already found. When members are added by a Church or Team Leader (one by one or by uploading a list), they are pre-approved and are automatically activated. Remember: there is no limit to how many responders can be on a Response Team!

You have three options when it comes to how new members are approved for your Response Team: 

• New Members automatically approved
  
  
• A Team Leader manually approves new members
  Note: A Primary Point Person may select this option to enable the possibility of creating a custom email journey for each new responder. This changes the message new responders receive when they first sign-up for the team, when they've been approved, and if/when they've been deactivated. To use this option, the Primary Point Person must select the "Team Leader manually approves new members" option and Save the page. Then they can click the "Custom Emails" button that appears orange under the setting (shown below) to access the page where you can edit these emails.
  
  
  
• Members validate by entering the email address of the Primary Point Person for their church
  When this is selected, the new team member will be automatically approved if they enter their church's point person email address. 

Auto Activate My Response Team

Off: Requires a Team Leader to manually activate the team members on a case by case basis using the "Activate your Team" feature in the Leader Actions area. This gives the team leader a chance to add a custom message about that request to encourage or give direction where needed. This feature then becomes "Update your Church" to allow Church Leaders to send follow-up messages regarding the request once the team has been activated.

On: Alerts all approved response team members for the team at the same time the team leader(s) are alerted. Team members will receive the same volume of request notifications as their team leaders, based on their team radius and settings.

Respond to Team Leader (or Caseworker)

Off: Responses from team members are sent to the Caseworker who entered the request. They are automatically given access to the Caseworker's contact information and the Caseworker will automatically be given access to the responder's information. All Team Leaders and the church's Primary Point Person will be copied on the confirmation email received by the responder (which includes the Caseworker's information). 

On: Responses from team members will be put in "pending" status while Team Leaders are alerted and equipped to confirm or set-up the logistics. Pending responses do not alert the Caseworker and other teams can still commit and respond to those items. When ready, a Team Leader can Edit/Approve (or decline) the response as an official commitment to the request. This process allows the Team Leader to select their own contact information or the original responder's for the Caseworker to receive.
(The animation below gives a preview of the approval process of pending responses)

Types of Requests

Child-Centered Requests: Receive approved requests by verified agencies who are serving somewhere on the spectrum of child welfare, whether prevention, in care, or transition (aging out of care). The Caseworker will select from one of the following purpose statements when entering a child-centered request:

• Help Make a Foster Care or Kinship Placement
• Help Make an Adoptive Placement
• Help Preserve a Foster Care or Kinship Placement
• Help Preserve an Adoptive Placement
• Help Prevent a Child from Entering Foster Care
• Help Reunify a Bio Family
• Help Strengthen a Bio Family
• Help Support a Youth Aging Out
• Help Improve a Child’s Well-Being
• Help Reintegrate a Survivor of Human Trafficking
• Support an Expecting Mom and Her Unborn Baby
• Prayer Request

Disaster Relief Requests: Receive approved requests by verified agencies who are serving in response to a local disaster in your area. These are temporary designations given to a specific area in the event of a natural disaster or event where the Church can be given access to serve as part of the response and recovery process.

The Caseworker will select from one of the following purpose statements when entering a disaster relief request:

• Support an Emergency Worker
• Alleviate Food/Essentials Insecurity
• Stabilize Housing Insecurity

Customizing The Areas Your Team Serves

When this section of the Response Teams Settings is expanded with the Show button, two sections are revealed:

Response Team Radius: Changing the number (miles) in this box and clicking Save will change the distance between your team and the requests you're notified about. Increasing this number will likely increase the volume of requests your team leaders are notified about, making these requests potentially farther away from your physical address. Decreasing this number will likely decrease the volume of requests you're notified about, making these requests closer to your physical address.

Note: If you're considering making your radius smaller, CarePortal recommends connecting with your local network leaders to make sure you're both aware of any gaps in coverage this may cause. Your settings within your response team will take precedence over other network settings- as they should!  

Communities of Critical Need: Each of the cities or counties on this list have been identified by their local network leaders as having a higher level of need than they have current local resources to meet those needs. Selecting one of these cities or counties would add the team leaders to the list of Community Responders for that area so that, when a local church leader chooses to "Engage the Community" on a specific request, you would receive their custom message, the request details, and the opportunity to easily respond and partner with that church.