Clients, Cases, and Connections

This guide walks you through adding client records and linking them together to build a complete case.

Time to Practice! As your team learns how records connect in SAM, create test records to practice. Repetition builds confidence and helps the process stick.

Adding Client Records

This video demonstrates how to add Child and Family records in SAM. 

Work alongside us - open you SAM site and practice adding new Family and Child records. 

Building a Case 

Client records (such as Families, Children, and Birth Parents) include a Case record to track how your agency serves them.

Cases allow a client to return for services without creating a new client record, while keeping a complete history of their work with your organization.

Each Case includes key fields to track services, case progress, and movement between cases. See our Cases Guide for more details.

Connecting Client Records

You can manage client records individually in SAM — but your mission is about connection. Bringing children and families together is at the heart of your work.

That’s why SAM includes tools to track adoptions and foster care placements, giving your team real-time visibility into each child’s journey and transitions.

Explore the links below to learn more about how each works.

Adoption

Adoption records track important dates from match to finalization between a family, birth mother, and/or child, depending on the specifics of their situation.

Foster Care Placement 

Placement record track foster care placements between a foster family and a child. Both foster families and children can have multiple placement records, when multiple children have been or are placed in the home or if a Child has experienced multiple placements. 

Practice creating Families, Children, and related records to see how everything links together — giving your team a clear, organized view of every relationship, service, and placement from start to finish. 📍