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Creating a referral

A referral is the authorization to deliver a service to a family. FCR walks you through it with a step-by-step intake wizard that saves as you go, so you can start now and finish later.

Before you start​

Who can do this: practice managers, supervisors, and admins.

Have ready:

  • The family — it must already exist in FCR and have its DCS case number. (Create it first if needed — see Adding and managing a family.)
  • The DCS referral details, including the referral ID and the authorized service and date range.
  • The DCS family case manager (FCM) contact information.
  • Which family members are covered by this referral.

Run the intake wizard​

  1. Open the family (or go to Referrals → Add referral) and start the wizard.
  2. Work through the steps: the referral and service details, the DCS family case manager, the covered members, and the authorized service.
  3. Save and continue as you go. After the early steps, the referral is held as pending intake, and you can choose Save as pending and exit at any point and pick it back up later.
  4. When everything's in, activate the referral to make it a live case.
You can stop and resume

The wizard saves your progress, so a phone call or a missing detail doesn't cost you the work. A pending-intake referral waits for you on the Referrals list.

Covered members​

You record which members the referral covers. This matters for every service, and it's especially important for Family Preservation, where the number of children covered on a given day drives the daily authorization. Keep the covered list accurate as the household changes.

Services with more than one component​

Some referrals authorize more than one kind of work — for example, Home-Based Casework with both face-to-face hours and court appearances. The wizard lets you add each authorized piece to the same referral, so a multi-part referral lives as one case.

Activating the referral​

To go live, a referral needs at least one covered member and at least one authorized service. If either is missing when you try to activate, FCR tells you what's missing and sends you back to the right step to fix it.

Each DCS referral ID is used once per agency

If you enter a DCS referral ID that's already on another referral in your agency, FCR will flag it. Double-check the number rather than creating a duplicate.

FAQ​

FCR won't let me create a referral for this family. The family needs its DCS case number first. Add it to the family record, then return to the referral.

I couldn't activate — it said something was missing. Activation requires at least one covered member and at least one authorized service. FCR points you to whichever step needs attention.

I had to stop partway through. Did I lose my work? No. After the first couple of steps the referral is saved as pending intake. Find it on the Referrals list and continue.

Can one family have several referrals? Yes. A family can carry multiple referrals over time — add a new one whenever DCS authorizes new work.