Project Description:
- Who: Facing Abuse in Community Environments (FACE)
- What: A non-profit which provides a resource for those facing either sexual, physical, financial, or spiritual abuse.
- Allows victims/sources to make a claim, which is then investigated by FACE’s team. During this time, resources are provided for victims.
- Database acts as a reference resource for survivors and other members of the community.
- When: 2017
- Partnered with UTD EPICS since Spring 2020.
- Where: Throughout the US and Canada.
- Why: FACE was created as a response to the growing number of religious and spiritual leaders who abused their position of power within the community.
- How: Through a case reporting system, the victim will be able to send any allegations that can then be investigated for legitimacy. These allegations will then be turned into misconduct reports by the organization which can be searched through the case database and then used for background checks and other forms of research.
Current Status:
Previous semesters and communication with the FACE team has provided us with a strong idea as to the necessary design and what needs to be done moving forward. We will be continuing to streamline FACE’s current reporting process, where instead of using multiple different platforms to create a case, we will attempt to narrow it down to primarily Insightly, which will also have fields to put information that will end up in the final case file. We are also working to utilize Zapier to automate workflows, decreasing the manpower and time it takes to create an investigation or a report.
For Fall 2022, our team will be focusing on finding a way to streamline the processing of cases across all the platforms used by FACE (i.e., Insightly, Google Forms). The current plan is to use Insightly and Zapier to connect these various platforms, with some reliance on APIs, should it become necessary. If we complete this goal with time remaining, we also intend to attempt the automate the creation of a findings report as much as possible. While doing this, we also plan to continuously document our work as we proceed to make it clear for the future teams what we achieved and what next steps could be.
Team Members:
Rajas Kothari: Project Leader
Simon Park: Partner Liaison
Armon Hadjimani: Financial Officer
Devin Schwartz: Project Webmaster
Nazeeha Muhammed: Document Manager
Semester Goals:
General goals are to streamline the intake and investigation process as much as is possible with our capabilities. A further goal is to automate the process of creating a findings report. Goals below pending review.
- Converting Allegation:
- Trigger email with Calendly link for Intake and “What to Expect” guide
- When intake appointment is scheduled, it is added to Insightly calendar and responsible employee notified
- Conducting Intake:
- Incorporate Google Form fields into “Considerations” window
- Activating Text/Call Feature:
- Merged with case profile and logged like emails for reference. Using phone and email submitted by alleging party during allegation submission