Agency Visit: Jinan 12345 Citizen Service Hotline

On the morning of July 13, 2021, a group of MSW students at SDU, who are participating in the International Summer School in Social Work 2021, under the arrangement and guidance of Professor Gao Jianguo, visited the Jinan 12345 Citizen Service-Hotline and discussed the possibility of online social work with the agency staff.

This visit to Jinan 12345 Citizen Service Hotline is divided into two sections. In the firstly section, we visited the working area of the Hotline and had a general understanding of the operational process and content. The hotline is equipped with world-leading IBM and DELL servers, Huawei voice switches, and other advanced hardware equipment. It has developed a highly informative and intelligent office system that was divided into 15 sections, including transfer, emergency, and early warning. The hotline has set electronic map query, system problem warning, on-site management schematic diagram, and other functions. It has gradually realized automatic classification and automatic transfer, discovered the use of data for speaking, data management, and data decision-making, which effectively improved the automation level of the hotline system and the efficiency of serving the people.

After visiting the work area, the visitors came to the reception room and discussed related issues of online social service or social work. We learned from the visit that social welfare benefits is one of the topics with relatively high public inquiry rate. The service hotline operator will answer the public's questions according to the standard “Q & A set” provided by relevant departments (government or enterprises). In addition, after comprehensively judging the severity of the problem, the departments or branches involved and other factors, the hotline services can be provided to the public by linking with third-party experts, referring to specific agencies, and connecting other hotlines. At the end of the service, the hotline operator will conduct regular follow-up visits by calls and investigate satisfaction degree of the clients.

Jinan 12345 hotline connects and integrates other service hotlines related to citizens’ rights and interests, such as youth service hotline and women's service hotline, and intersects with the field of social work. The operation of Jinan 12345 citizen service hotline provides a variety of possibilities for online social work: first, some users who dial the hotline are potential outreach objects of social workers. According to the hotline conversation, the operator can judge the needs of users and refer them to outreach wocial workers for follow-up services; Secondly, if it can be combined with online social work service, which will solve certain difficulties for the clients by online intervention; Finally, social work students can receive train and work as volunteer operators for users in need, and provide diversified internship services through online means.

Through this visit, the MSW students of Shandong University who participated in the ISUSW 2021 had a new understanding to develop online social work. Some of them expressed a strong interest in online social work services, which provided new topics for future study and research.

Written by Li Yaqian (MSW student, SDU)

On July 15, 2021