In Parts
COVER STORY/TECHNOLOGY
Working in Wiki: Rescue Operation
Fifth of five parts: 1 2 3 4 5 Single Page
A Michigan county uses a wiki to keep caseworkers up to date.
When Donna Sabourin looked at the results of an annual performance-review survey of mental health caseworkers in Washtenaw County, Michigan, she was shocked. The vast majority of her caseworkers — Sabourin is head of the community mental health department for the county — were telling her they didn't have the resources they needed to do their jobs. This, despite all the gear — pagers, cell phones, laptops — with which they were armed.
A workgroup was formed to figure out what the problems were and how they could be solved. At one of the first meetings, John Schippers, a caseworker supervisor with an interest in Web 2.0 technologies, took out his laptop and demonstrated a mock-up of a wiki. He showed the workgroup how a Washtenaw County Human Services wiki could be used to gather information — find out what resources the mental health workers were missing and then put that information on the site.
Take the problem of forms. Caseworkers had to fill out a variety of them for various clients but it was almost impossible to find the form they needed. Usually, they had to search through a bin of more than 100 unalphabetized forms and hope that the one they needed was in stock and current. The wiki could not only gather information about the form problem, it also could be the solution. Since the county's mental health department put its wiki in place, the forms have been available electronically on the site. All a caseworker has to do is make a quick search within the wiki for the most recent version of the form. It will then pop up and be available for electronic fill-in.
Another issue the wiki is solving has to do with lists of outside resources — where to get furniture for a homeless person's new apartment; where to get affordable eyeglasses for a legally blind person. "Every caseworker keeps their own mental lists of the issues that they've dealt with," Schippers says. "Some have really long lists because they've been around a long time." The Human Services wiki allows for the pooling of everyone's lists and a means to keep them up to date. The wiki lists replace the old resource guides that were issued fairly regularly by the department but which were out of date almost the day after they were printed. "With the wiki," says Steve Wiland, clinical practices administrator, "the end users have a vested interest to keep it up to date and accurate." In the past, the department had considered storing this type of information on a shared drive, but it didn't have the resources for a database manager. With the wiki, the whole department shares responsibility for managing the information.
New technologies are rarely greeted with the enthusiastic welcome the wiki has received in the Department of Community Mental Health. Newly minted wiki evangelists pass out key chains at meetings that say, "I Go Wacky for the Wiki." Some 90 people are using the wiki each day — about one-third of the staff. "I'll add it to the wiki" has become a theme in staff meetings, with unforeseen uses being discovered every week. The department recently discovered, for example, that posting training materials in the wiki provides an easy way for newcomers as well as experienced people to brush up on techniques.
The trick for Washtenaw going forward will be to manage the wiki in the face of all its newfound uses. Finding the right balance between control and flexibility is critical for any governmental organization as it experiments with wikis. For example, the department hopes to include a database of information from its 211 hotline for people seeking community services or volunteer opportunities. That would extend its usefulness far outside the department but might require additional management. And the 211 project is not the only reason to open the wiki to the wider community. Extending access to a local nonprofit organization that helps with housing problems, for example, could facilitate the sharing of useful information.
Fifth of five parts: 1 2 3 4 5 Single Page