How to refer a new client to us

New to our referral process? Let us help you find your way.

When you have a client who would benefit from one of our adult or youth programmes, the first step to refer them to us is to fill out a form (of course!). It’s cleverly called the “Referral Form,” nice and simple, right! Once you fill out the form and send it to us with as much information as possible, we have a good initial snapshot about the client to be able to determine what the right service is to help them. Sometimes we have questions during the intake process, so thanks for answering those as we go.

You can find the Referral Form in the ‘Resources’ section of our website.

You are welcome to download the form and keep it on your computer, but you’ll want to check back in on the website periodically as we do make updates.

For those of you in more urgent situations, if you have someone in front of you that needs fast help, you can also call us on 03 548 3850 and we can take the details down over the phone to speed up the process. Thanks for doing this in your most urgent cases only.

We would love it if you could fill out the form by typing into it – again, easiest to do if you download it first. Typed information is easy to read and helps us enter the data into our system faster.

Sometimes we receive forms that are missing information. It would help us if you could ensure every box has been completed. One key section is at the bottom of page: three questions ask about your concerns as well as the client’s concerns. Please give us as much information here as you can – everything you share is

entirely confidential. When we make our assessment of the client, we want to understand as completely as possible why you want to refer them to us and what issues have come up to cause the referral. Another key section is the ethnicity information, which we are required to obtain for reporting purposes to central Government.

When you have finished filling out the form, you can email it to us, or put it in the post if you wish. Contact details are on the top of the form.

Once we receive a referral, we enter all of the data into our systems and allocate the new client to one of our clinicians. Sometimes the new client doesn’t communicate with us and we let referring agencies know if this is the case. Then the clinician holds the first meeting with the client.

The process can happen quickly or it may take several weeks if we have a wait list. New staff members hired last year with increased funding from central Government helped us to reduce waiting times. If we have a cancellation, we always try to contact people on the wait list to fill those gaps.

If you have questions while you’re filling out the form, don’t hesitate to call our Service Coordinator Angela in our office on 03 548 3850. Our contact details are also on the top of page one of the referral form.