A human-centric approach to cross-agency service coordination in Alberta

A young woman has just said the words the worker spent months waiting for — I'll go, tonight. It is the most perishable asset in the whole system, and the moment it usually dies: the old reflex is to phone every shelter and Google who's open. Instead she opens the Navigator, taps Frontline / Crisis, scopes /search to Calgary, and applies Has beds · Open now · Verified only. A low-barrier, trafficking-appropriate bed comes back — No ID Required, open at this hour — and she sends a warm handoff with a reference number the safehouse confirms while a broadcast ping sits in reserve. The woman is placed before the window closes. Today the bed counts behind that filter are seeded demo data and the confirmation loop is open at the far end — the readiness broadcast and provider-kept live availability are the proposed layer that turns the window from a gamble into a placement.

1. Pick the frontline doorThe role picker (“What brings you here?”) shows five doors; she taps Frontline / Crisis, tailoring the home and toolkit to direct-service work. [CURRENT] — the door ships today; the directory behind it is thin.
2. Find a safe bed without calling every shelterScopes to Calgary and applies Has beds · Open now · Verified only — answering trafficking-appropriate, available, reachable-now in one query; if nothing qualifies it says “No providers match your filters”. [CURRENT] filters; [POTENTIAL] provider-kept live bed counts so “Has beds” means tonight.
3. Read the card, confirm it fits herThe provider card shows Capacity & access (beds, No ID Required, immigration-safe, hours), Available now and Verified by — screening out the eligibility-threshold trap that sends survivors back. [CURRENT]; capacity is provider-editable but populated by seeded demo data today.
4. Warm handoff that doesn't collapseCreates a warm handoff — “Handoff created (Ref #4734)” — with a summary and a Status the safehouse can mark Confirmed directly. [CURRENT] open loop; [POTENTIAL] closed-loop confirmation of the person, not just the message.
5. Keep a broadcast in reservePrimes an SMS ping to on-call workers as a parallel hedge — “SMS ping sent to 2 workers”, with a 30-day response rate. [CURRENT] ping; [POTENTIAL] a window-of-readiness broadcast that fans to every open trafficking-appropriate bed, first to confirm wins.

A man on a closed work permit comes in “about a pay problem.” Through an interpreter the picture turns: unpaid five weeks, passport “kept safe” by the employer, a $38,000 recruiter debt, told he'll be deported and his family contacted if he leaves. Angie does intake, not anti-trafficking — she has no screening tool and is afraid the wrong move costs him his status. She opens Community Outreach, types what she's seeing into /triage without using the word “trafficking,” searches only providers that won't demand the ID he doesn't safely have, and sends one consented summary onward so he tells his story once. Today she sends to one recipient and re-keys the rest, and the indicators live only in her prose. The screening Question Aid, the status-safe filter, and the one-to-many handoff that make the promise true are proposed extensions on functions that ship today.

1. Pick the frontline doorTaps Community Outreach — a frontline door, not a system one — tailoring home and toolkit to direct-service work. [CURRENT]; what is thin is the value behind it for her user type.
2. Describe what you're seeing, and name itIn the “Describe what you're seeing…” box she types the unpaid wages, held passport, recruitment debt and threats abroad — without the word “trafficking.” [CURRENT] free-text screen; [POTENTIAL] a labour-trafficking Question Aid that reflects the recognized indicators back so a non-HT-trained worker has screening confidence.
3. Find services that don't ask for statusRegion-scoped /search; cards already carry immigration-safe, No ID Required, and Language Link (24/7), and return honestly where the rural directory is thin. [CURRENT] flags; [POTENTIAL] a single status-safe pathway filter so routing never risks his permit.
4. One summary, three doors, told onceRoutes onward to immigration-legal, health and anti-trafficking. [CURRENT] one-recipient warm handoff with a Handoff summary and Ref #; [POTENTIAL] a multi-recipient handoff that fans one consented summary to all three at once, so the continuum assembles around the summary, not around him.
5. Leave him with his rightsPulls a plain-language rights item to give him in his language. [CURRENT] role-scoped knowledge cards; [POTENTIAL] a status-safe rights explainer keyed to the triage indicators that rebuts the recruiter's threats at the point of contact.

Desmond is six weeks from eighteen — in care, a substance-use history, no income, and no adult service waiting on the other side of the date. Tasha has watched this cliff before: the file that closes at 18-and-a-day, the kid on the street by the weekend, the recruiter's easiest target. She doesn't wait for the birthday to start calling. She opens Frontline / Crisis, searches adult providers, reads each card's mandate before she sends anyone, and warm-hands Desmond's file to the one provider whose terms actually fit — tagged Case Management so it lands as a managed transfer, with his acuity in the summary. Today she can show who exists and pass the file; what she can't yet do is reserve the slot before the birthday, filter out the mandate wall automatically, or hand over an inheritable relationship. Those three — dated pre-staging, eligibility-aware matching, Case Management Light — are the proposed layer that keeps Desmond from aging out into nothing.

1. Pick the frontline doorTaps Frontline / Crisis; the session tailors to direct-service work. [CURRENT] — a directory and a handoff rail, honest that it is not a case-management suite.
2. Search adult services, eligibility before the mandate wallScopes to Grande Prairie, filters to adult housing and support, and opens a /providers/:id card to read Capacity & access, hours and Verified by before sending anyone. [CURRENT] access terms shown; [POTENTIAL] eligibility-aware matching that surfaces only services that accept this youth (18+, active use permitted, no DV-incident gate).
3. Pre-stage the handoff before the birthdayFrom the one mandate-fit provider, creates a warm handoff with the transition written into the summary. [CURRENT] handoff for now, Ref # and Status; [POTENTIAL] dated transition pre-staging so the slot is reserved and confirmed before the cliff, not improvised after it.
4. A continuity thread the receiving provider inheritsFlags Case Management as the service category so the adult provider picks up a file, not a cold name. [CURRENT] Case Management category; [POTENTIAL] “Case Management Light” — an inheritable continuity record (history, what worked, trusted contacts) for not-for-profits without an enterprise patient-management system.
5. Acuity context the next worker won't rediscoverNotes substance use, no income and the prime-target window in the Handoff summary so it travels with the file. [CURRENT] free-text summary; [POTENTIAL] a structured acuity / risk flag the receiving provider sees at intake without re-interviewing Desmond from scratch.