How the Texarkana Children’s Advocacy Center Expedited Client Intake with E-Signature

Since its founding in 1996, the Texarkana Children’s Advocacy Center (TCAC) has provided forensic interviewing, medical exams, therapy and advocacy services for children who have been abused or neglected and their affected family members. TCAC works alongside law enforcement, district attorneys’ offices, Child Protective Services and other agencies to deliver these critical services across 10 Texas counties.

Like many nonprofits, TCAC found itself weighed down by inefficient paper-based processes, particularly during client intake. It wasn’t until the team introduced DocuSign eSignature that it was able to eliminate a major barrier faced by families in need of their services and regain time and resources previously spent on paper-based agreements. Read on to learn more about their story.

Serving families in crisis with e-signature

Before starting therapy at TCAC, families complete extensive intake paperwork. Although basic in theory, this requirement posed a significant burden on both participating families and the organization itself.

Few families have access to a printer, which meant TCAC often had to print the 40-page intake documents in their office. In addition to expending resources on printing, this process consumed valuable minutes of the families’ therapy sessions; most couldn’t make a separate trip just to fill out the paperwork and instead had to spend a majority of their first session completing it.

Kaleigh Dodson, TCAC’s director of program operations, consulted the team’s financial director, Misty Honea, in search of a solution. Fortunately, she discovered that the organization already had a DocuSign eSignature account and transitioned the paper-based intake process to a digital one. 

Making therapy more accessible

After moving the intake agreement onto eSignature, Dodson and her team noticed a significant uptick in completion rates. She attributes this to the increased access eSignature provides.

Now, instead of driving up to an hour to complete the forms, families fill them out right on their mobile device wherever and whenever it is most convenient for them. For those who don’t have an email account or computer, Dodson can send the agreement as an SMS message for greater convenience.

“Most of the families that we deal with are of lower socioeconomic status,” says Dodson. “They don’t always have access to personal computers or tablets, but almost everyone has a smartphone and some sort of internet connectivity. We bought the texting feature because not all families have email.”

In addition to expediting the intake process for therapy, eSignature has completely eliminated a time-consuming task for TCAC’s multidisciplinary team (MDT), a composite of agencies across several counties. The MDT team has to procure signatures from each agency representative whenever there’s a change in employment or policies. Before implementing eSignature, an MDT staff member would drive to every location to acquire signatures. With eSignature, signatures are obtained remotely, saving significant time and money. 

Empowering nonprofits to do more with less 

For nonprofits like TCAC, every dollar matters. DocuSign eSignature has made their therapy intake and MDT processes more efficient, helping them conserve resources while maximizing reach and impact. The team also saved money upfront by procuring eSignature through TechSoup, a DocuSign partner that offers software discounts to qualifying nonprofits.

Finally, the DocuSign eSignature platform has made TCAC’s documents more secure. Thanks to DocuSign’s multi-factor and role-based authorizations, the team can trust that only authorized users have access to confidential and highly sensitive documents. They can also rest assured that the documents are securely stored in a cloud-based repository for better, safer record-keeping.

Learn more about how nonprofits of all sizes can use DocuSign to accomplish their mission and make the most of their resources. Register to watch our recent webinar, Nonprofits’ Stories on Mission Delivery with DocuSign.