Recently there has been some confusion about the purpose and use of the “Left Program Date” field in the Volunteer module of CasaManager.
The purpose of this field is to indicate what day a volunteer who has started training or has served as an Advocate left the program. Leaving the program means that they don’t want to or can’t take any more child assignments. This applies to volunteers who at least started training as well, even if they don’t finish or never take a case.
The data from this field is used in reports both in CasaManager and in CasaConnect to count the number of previously active volunteer Advocates who have left the program in the date range specified. If you are seeing a greater number in this field than were active in the date range there could be two reasons for the difference in the numbers.
- You have a volunteer who was active in a previous date range who left the program in this date range.
- Staff is entering a Date Left for volunteers who were never active or started training with the agency.
We encourage agencies to enter any one who calls the agency because they are interested in what CASA does. Doing this helps staff determine how well they are doing in their recruitment efforts. As we know, not all of the callers will end up serving as an Advocate or start training! If you do nothing to the record the system will automatically age them out by turning them first yellow after 6 months and Red after 12mos. You do not and should not enter a date in the Left Agency field because they were never active with your agency. You can however enter a reason if you want to since this field will not be used for reporting (only the date is used)
If you find the volunteer is inappropriate or not a good fit for CASA then check the “Do Not Call” check and let them age out in time. Or if you feel really strongly about a particular volunteer and you want them to turn red before they would automaticall you can check the “Red Now” check box. However, unless they have started training or they have take a case, do not enter a Date Left otherwise you will skew your reporting numbers.
If you have any questions about when and/or how to use the Left Program Date field, please contact support@casamanager.com