4.6 PIN Comments

General Info regarding PIN Comments

FSET agencies should PIN comment all interactions with FSET participants. All FSET workers and DHS employees should be easily able to chronologically understand the participant’s progress in the FSET program when reading the PIN comments. All PIN comments should stay professional and avoid workers’ personal opinions about FSET participants.

Orientation and Enrollment and Ongoing Assessments

All information gathered during the orientation and enrollment process as well as ongoing assessments must be summarized into PIN comments. This includes information that is entered into other pages of CWW including but not limited to the barriers, assessments, and the participants’ strengths, needs and preferences.

All discussions of supportive services, and referrals to community resources, even if declined by the participant, must be included in PIN comments. If an FSET agency loses contact with an FSET participant, the FSET agency must include any known information as to why the participant discontinued communicating with the FSET agency.
Employment Plan Development

Details related to a participant’s Employment Plan should be captured through PIN Comments. Case workers should help participants brainstorm short-, medium-, and long-term goals related to employment activities. All relevant Assigned Activities as well as any changes made to the EP should be documented in PIN comments.

All discussions of the participants’ short- and long-term goals and activity assignments must be included in PIN comments. This means that if a participant’s employment plan is updated, a narrative of employment plan discussion must be included in PIN comments. If a participant has a short-term goal of immediately obtaining employment, the FSET worker should encourage the participant to explore long-term goals that lead to sustainable employment and document this conversation in PIN comments.
Communication with Outside Organizations

Communication with outside organizations including IM, other work programs, training providers, and employers, should be documented in PIN comments. If a participant is co-enrolled in other work programs, this should also be documented along with any interaction case worker has with contacts in the co-enrolled program. All interactions with IM agencies should be documented in PIN comments. This includes, but is not limited to, interactions assisting participants with obtaining exemptions, working with IM to update the ABAWD clock, and any other relevant updates provided.
Template PIN Comments

Template PIN commenting is not generally encouraged by DHS but is acceptable. To ensure that correct templates and correct information are being used for each participant, it is best practice to double check templates and the information contained within. If DHS finds consistent errors in template PIN commenting, an agency may be directed to discontinue use of template PIN comments.

This page last updated in Release Number: 21-01
Release Date: 03/29/2021
Effective Date: 03/29/2021