From manual notes to AI driven Insights with Viriya Community Services

Viriya Community Services is made up of a multi-disciplinary team of social workers, counsellors, family therapists, psychologists and other professionals. Collectively, they render support to about 5,000 individuals and families in vulnerable situations yearly.

Before, practitioners would have to rely on notes taken manually during sessions to aid them in completing their case notes post-session. This task is often labour intensive, complex, and overwhelming. The need to scribble points as they engage with clients also takes focus away from the actual conversation, which needs to be handled with great sensitivity and care.

Since the addition of IntelliBot however, the team is now equipped with case recording and analytical tools to facilitate digitalised recording and transcription. While the transcription is not a new technology, continued feedback and development helped refine the software, so that it is able to provide accurate transcripts that accounted for the use of Singlish in dialogue. The IntelliBot can even identify emotional tones expressed in client engagement, which could help direct user attention to specific sections of the conversation.

The tool provided significant improvements to the productivity and quality of practitioners’ case management, as transcriptions can now be derived promptly and easily. There was also an unintended byproduct: After transcripts are generated, they are piped into an AI system that supports practitioners’ case conceptualisation capability.

After all, it is only when tools are combined with human expertise that the social service sector can thrive, assisting them in routine administrative tasks so that they can focus on what truly matters – connecting with their service users with great empathy, care, and understanding.

As SSAs begin to adopt unfamiliar tools that may disrupt operations, it is only natural that staff might question the need to overhaul established workflows. Andy Lam, Executive Director of Viriya Community Services notes that change management is important in adopting new technologies and policies.

“Internally, it was critical to keep reminding the team of the bigger vision, encourage co-creation by having the team involved in the process so their voice is significantly considered and celebrate small wins,” he adds.

“Externally, it was also important to have like-minded stakeholders, in this case - NCSS, vendors such as KILSA Global, abax.ai and Capelle - who believed in the vision and consequently, formed a strong network of support.”

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