Buncombe named pilot county for effort to link referral systems; service directory to enable universal referrals

Buncombe County JCPC staff told members on Oct. 16 that the county will be part of a pilot to connect two databases used in juvenile services, a change intended to speed referral processing and reduce duplicate data entry.

Programs currently enter client data in separate systems: community programs use NTAlly (entered as NTLI/NTAlly in the meeting record) while juvenile court staff use NC JIN (NC Juvenile Information Network). JCPC staff said the pilot will attempt to link those two systems so court counselors can pull client data into a universal referral form and send referrals directly to community providers with attached documentation.

The technical connection will use the publicly accessible state service directory as the transfer mechanism; JCPC staff said the directory contains statewide service entries but that search results can be sensitive to exact wording, which makes some services difficult to find. Staff said Buncombe County will be a western-region pilot site but noted rollout was delayed while developers address multi-county program coordination and search limitations.

If successful, the pilot will reduce duplicate entry for court-referred youth and auto-populate portions of the universal referral form, saving staff time and shortening the referral-to-service timeline. JCPC staff encouraged programs and schools to continue using existing referral processes until the pilot is fully operational.