System helps charity support helpline better

The Muslim Youth Helpline (MYH) is using database software to improve its record keeping.

The charity provides culturally sensitive support services to young UK Muslims.

MYH director Shareefa Fulat says that before the Oracle database system was installed, the organisation used a paper filing system that was cumbersome and difficult to search.

‘A lot of our clients are long term, so it is important for us to record why they are calling, so if they call back and speak to a different person, there is a full history,’ said Fulat.

‘We also collect information such as the age and gender of the caller, and their ethnicity, so we have a sense of the profile of people using the service. We can then report that to our funders and make sure we are meeting the needs of our users.’

Oracle donated the database software as part of a training project for a team of three graduate trainees.

The graduates tailored the database to help analyse the nature of calls to the charity, and make it quicker for information to be recorded into the system.