What is included in a license?

Search available adopter profiles. The detail contained in profiles guides family-finders to families who may best meet a child's needs, whether in-house, from a LA, RAA or nationally.

Search waiting children’s profiles. The details contained in children’s profiles will guide practitioners on which families will best be able to meet the needs of the children.

Show interest in families. Available families can be filtered and ordered by compatibility or according to a range of geographical and other criteria, and approaches can be made to invite discussions.

Show interest to children’s practitioners. Waiting children can be filtered and ordered by compatibility for families and according to a range of geographical and other criteria, and approaches can be made to invite discussions.

Create an unlimited number of profiles. Profiles can be issued to in-house families, or to external families according to geography, consortia and other criteria.

Schedule profile visibility. The visibility of child profiles can be automatically increased from, for example, in-house, to a small geographical area, to a larger area, at appropriate intervals. The sequence can be set to stop automatically when sufficient interest has been shown.

Edit family profile visibility. There are three options of visibility for family profiles which are hidden, only available in-house and available everywhere.

Adopter led matching. Families can view waiting children’s profile and show interest themselves. Social workers can support and involve families by sharing details with their families, and empower them to help identify suitable matches where appropriate. Families can be supported online by appropriate staff during family-finding and post-placement.

Keep information up-to-date. All users can update their profiles and cases directly, in real time. Link Maker monitors all activity and intervenes directly with users by email and telephone whenever an update or a user response may be overdue.

Manage cases and tasks flexibly. All user accounts are specific to individuals, so that cases can be shared between managers and social workers according to prevailing practice and policy in the organisation.

Meet data protection obligations. Link Maker is ISO 27001 accredited and designed to help local authorities and placement providers meet all their GDPR obligations in the UK.

Ongoing development. Link Maker's continuous development is shaped by feedback and suggestions from users.

System alerts. Users can receive tailored system alerts through email, these can be sent to defined shared inboxes.

Features to assist with in-house family finding. Ability to restrict children and family profiles to in-house only and the ability to restrict the families from viewing external profiles. The ability to message in-house without showing an interest first. In-house tracking is also available to view ADM dates and placement orders.

Agency areas. Manage a customised, branded portal for staff and families from your organisation. This can bring together both family-finding and support, and can provide news and information, advertise and facilitate events, hold forums for practice discussion and peer support, and make family-finding profiles available to appropriate users

User guides. Accessible user guides and a comprehensive FAQ is available to all staff. Logged in users can access a help page with a wide-ranging library of help videos.

Prioritised development. Development can be prioritised for your requested features (where these fit into the functioning of the wider platform).

Readily available support. Email and telephone support for all users from 9-5pm, Monday-Friday.

Secure message sharing. Users can send messages within a discussion with other organisations. All messages are secure and encrypted with the highest level of security.

Secure document sharing. Users can store documents against a case and share documents within discussions with other organisations. All documents are secure and encrypted with the highest level of security.

Report generation. Practitioners can generate a range of detailed PDF activity reports, which can be logged against a case, or downloaded for use. Specific users can be granted the ability to export live profile data for flexible reporting.

Sufficiency dashboards. Practitioners have access to a sufficiency dashboard that provides live performance data about placements found through Link Maker. This data can be exported into a PDF report.

Search waiting children’s profiles. The details contained in children’s profiles will guide practitioners on which families will best be able to meet the needs of the children.

Show interest to children’s practitioners. Waiting children can be filtered and ordered by compatibility for families and according to a range of geographical and other criteria, and approaches can be made to invite discussions.

Create an unlimited number of profiles. Profiles can be issued to in-house families, or to external families according to geography, consortia and other criteria.

Edit family profile visibility. There are three options of visibility for family profiles which are hidden, only available in-house and available everywhere.

Adopter led matching. Families can view waiting children’s profile and show interest themselves. Social workers can support and involve families by sharing details with their families, and empower them to help identify suitable matches where appropriate. Families can be supported online by appropriate staff during family-finding and post-placement.

Keep information up-to-date. All users can update their profiles and cases directly, in real time. Link Maker monitors all activity and intervenes directly with users by email and telephone whenever an update or a user response may be overdue.

Manage cases and tasks flexibly. All user accounts are specific to individuals, so that cases can be shared between managers and social workers according to prevailing practice and policy in the organisation.

Meet data protection obligations. Link Maker is ISO 27001 accredited and designed to help local authorities and placement providers meet all their GDPR obligations.

Ongoing development. Link Maker's continuous development is shaped by feedback and suggestions from users.

System alerts. Users can receive tailored system alerts through email, these can be sent to defined shared inboxes.

Agency areas. Manage a customised, branded portal for staff and families from your organisation. This can bring together both family-finding and support, and can provide news and information, advertise and facilitate events, hold forums for practice discussion and peer support, and make family-finding profiles available to appropriate users

User guides. Accessible user guides and a comprehensive FAQ is available to all staff. Logged in users can access a help page with a wide-ranging library of help videos.

Prioritised development. Development can be prioritised for your requested features (where these fit into the functioning of the wider platform).

Readily available support. Email and telephone support for all users from 9-5pm, Monday-Friday.

Secure message sharing. Users can send messages within a discussion with other organisations. All messages are secure and encrypted with the highest level of security.

Secure document sharing. Users can store documents against a case and share documents within discussions with other organisations. All documents are secure and encrypted with the highest level of security.

Report generation. Practitioners can generate a range of detailed PDF activity reports, which can be logged against a case, or downloaded for use. Specific users can be granted the ability to export live profile data for flexible reporting.

Sufficiency dashboards. Practitioners have access to a sufficiency dashboard that provides live performance data about placements found through Link Maker. This data can be exported into a PDF report.

System alerts. Users can receive tailored system alerts through email, these can be sent to defined shared inboxes.

Agency areas. Manage a customised, branded portal for staff and families from your organisation. This can bring together both family-finding and support, and can provide news and information, advertise and facilitate events, hold forums for practice discussion and peer support, and make family-finding profiles available to appropriate users

Search the widest range of vacancies. All vacancies are instantly visible whether in-house, on a framework, or nationally. Vacancies can be ordered according to how they may best match a child's specific needs and filtered by requirements such as geography and start dates.

Manage provider groups. Create custom groups of providers according to contract frameworks, or those providing specific services. Groups can be used to filter available vacancies, or to determine the availability of a commissioning profile.

Unlimited placement requests. Issue an unlimited number of placement requests to any defined provider group(s) and within defined geographical criteria, instantly and securely. Deploy current documents and contact details more efficiently, or use the new universal commissioning profile.

Universal commissioning profile. Clear and complete information is captured including the purpose of the placement, the outcomes sought, the child's views, assessed risks, and when the placement is needed. The form will be kept under review to ensure it continues to meet the needs of the sector. An existing placement request form can be uploaded instead if preferred.

Reach all current providers. Placement requests can be issued to all providers with whom an authority works. Those not already using Link Maker would receive invitations by email to register for free in order to securely access placement requests that have been issued to them.

Access off-contract placements. Where a vacancy from a different contract framework is of interest, details of the provider, including membership of other frameworks, are available so that options can be explored.

Define response timescales. Request that placement offers are submitted by a specific date to allow consideration of options, negotiation of contracts and planning of the placement.

Manage cases and tasks flexibly. Cases and tasks can be shared between managers, commissioners, placement officers and social workers according to prevailing practice and policy in the organisation.

Secure message sharing. Users can send messages within a discussion with other organisations. All messages are secure and encrypted with the highest level of security.

Secure document sharing. Users can store documents against a case and share documents within discussions with other organisations. All documents are secure and encrypted with the highest level of security.

Report generation. Practitioners can generate a range of detailed PDF activity reports, which can be logged against a case, or downloaded for use. Specific users can be granted the ability to export live profile data for flexible reporting.

System alerts. Users can receive tailored system alerts through email, these can be sent to defined shared inboxes.

Automatic scheduling. Referrals can be made available through an automatic availability schedule. Scheduled templates can be created for personal use or use across an organisation.

In-house vacancy management. Vacancies can be listed for the purpose of in-house placements. Discussions can take place between practitioners within the same agency prior to an expression of interest.

Enhanced foster carer involvement. You can use Link Maker to easily communicate with your foster carers directly and involve them in profile curation, placement finding and discussions. You always have control – only you create foster carer cases and change their profile visibility, and only you can choose to communicate with a local authority.

Meet data protection obligations. Link Maker is ISO 27001 accredited and designed to help local authorities and placement providers meet all their GDPR obligations in the UK.

Keep information up-to-date. All users can update their profiles and cases directly, in real time.

Ongoing development. Link Maker's continuous development is shaped by feedback and suggestions from users.

User guides. Accessible user guides and a comprehensive FAQ is available to all staff. Logged in users can access a help page with a wide-ranging library of help videos.

Prioritised development. Development can be prioritised for your requested features (where these fit into the functioning of the wider platform).

Readily available support. Email and telephone support for all users from 9-5pm, Monday-Friday.

Service level agreement. A service level agreement specifying minimum levels of availability of the platform, and minimum support response times.

Search and receive the widest range of placement requests.

Manage provider groups. Create custom groups of Local Authorities according to contract frameworks or any other other specific relationship. Groups can be used to filter placement requests, or to determine the availability of a commissioning profile.

Unlimited profiles. Optionally list any number of foster carers or residential homes, to any defined local authority group(s) and within defined geographical criteria, instantly and securely. Deploy current documents and contact details more efficiently or use the new universal commissioning profile.

Universal commissioning profile. Clear and complete information is captured including the purpose of the placement, the outcomes sought, the child's views, assessed risks, and when the placement is needed. The form will be kept under review to ensure it continues to meet the needs of the sector. An existing placement request form can be uploaded instead if preferred.

Reach all current local authorities. Placement requests can be issued to all local authorities with whom a provider works.

Access off-contract placement requests. Where a vacancy from a different contract framework is of interest, details of the local authority are available so that options can be explored.

Manage cases and tasks flexibly. Cases and tasks can be shared between managers, commissioners, placement officers and social workers according to prevailing practice and policy in the organisation.

Secure message sharing. Users can send messages within a discussion with other organisations. All messages are secure and encrypted with the highest level of security.

Secure document sharing. Users can store documents against a case and share documents within discussions with other organisations. All documents are secure and encrypted with the highest level of security.

Report generation. Practitioners can generate a range of detailed PDF activity reports, which can be logged against a case, or downloaded for use. Specific users can be granted the ability to export live profile data for flexible reporting.

Enhanced foster carer involvement. You can use Link Maker to easily communicate with your foster carers directly and involve them in profile curation, placement finding and discussions. You always have control – only you create foster carer cases and change their profile visibility, and only you can choose to communicate with a local authority.

Keep information up-to-date. All users can update their profiles and cases directly, in real time.

System alerts. Users can receive tailored system alerts through email, these can be sent to defined shared inboxes.

Meet data protection obligations. Link Maker is ISO 27001 accredited and designed to help local authorities and placement providers meet all their GDPR obligations in the UK.

Ongoing development. Link Maker's continuous development is shaped by feedback and suggestions from users.

User guides. Accessible user guides and a comprehensive FAQ is available. Logged in users can access a help page with a wide-ranging library of help videos.

Readily available support. Email and telephone support for all users from 9-5pm, Monday-Friday.

Create an unlimited number of cases and links. Cases can be created for a single child or for a sibling group. An unlimited number of contact links can be created per case, to replicate any existing contact arrangements. Links can be created for all children on a case, and for individual children.

Keep information up to date. Cases and links are flexible and can be edited whenever needed to keep information up to date. Adopters and birth family members can update their contact details when needed, and you will be notified of these changes.

Invite adopters and birth family members to participate. Adopters and birth family members can be invited to create their own user account and participate in letterbox contact through the system.

Manage cases and tasks flexibly. All user accounts are specific to individuals, so that cases can be shared between managers and social workers according to prevailing practice and policy in the organisation.

System alerts. Users can receive tailored system alerts through email, these can be sent to defined shared inboxes.

Flexible contact schedules. Contact schedules can be set for adopters and/or birth family members, to facilitate current contact agreements. Contact schedules determine when families can communicate and how many communications they can send. Contact schedules can be changed flexibly or removed when appropriate.

Flexible content permissions. Permissions are granted to families to determine which types of content they can sent (e.g., messages, documents, letters), and these permissions can be flexibly reduced or expanded.

Secure content sharing. Users can send messages, documents, images, videos, and audio clips through the system. All content is secure and encrypted to the highest level of security.

Record offline contact. Record contact exchanged offline, such as letters sent in the post, keeping your records up to date.

Online letter creator. Families can create a letter digitally with our online letter creator, adjusting the formatting and adding images to make letters their own. Online letters can be saved as a draft to return to later.

Record of contact exchanged. Letter Swap automatically creates a record of all contact exchanged, which can then be downloaded and printed.

Ongoing development. Link Maker's continuous development is shaped by feedback and suggestions from users.

Meet data protection obligations. Link Maker is ISO 27001 accredited and designed to help local authorities and placement providers meet all their GDPR obligations in the UK.

User guides and help videos. Accessible user guides and help videos are available to all staff and families.

Prioritised development. Development can be prioritised for your requested features (where these fit into the functioning of the wider platform).

Readily available support. Telephone, email, and online chat support is available for all users from 9-5pm, Monday-Friday.