Unified Human Services Definition Spreadsheet

	A	B	C	D	E	F
1	term (group similar)	similar existing terms	definition	source/date	Comments/Notes (open to append/develop)	Proposed hybrid/new definition

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3	Agency	Organization, Service provider	An agency is a legally recognized organization, either incorporated or a division of government, that delivers services. An agency can be an incorporated entity, or a division of government, or it can also be an unincorporated group that offers, for example, a food pantry or support group. The agency is the main location of the resource where the administrative functions occur, where the organization’s director is generally housed and where it is licensed for business. An agency may or may not deliver direct services from this location. On occasions, I&R services may choose to designate a middle level of the organization as the agency. For example, a county Department of Human Services may offer dozens of services but is often recognized by the names of its component programs: Social Services, Health Department, etc. This allows some flexibility in the styling of agency names. It is acceptable to use those components as agencies as long as their relationship to the larger organization is acknowledged in the description or by the way the database is structured.	AIRS XSD Style Guide
4	Bed Reservation
5	Bed Occupancy	Bed Capacity, Bed Availability, Shelter/hostel space			Clive note: "program capacity" is a concept that might have broader applicability but can be problematic in trying to create equivalency in different service clusters. Bed "occupancy" and "availability" are technically different sides of same coin. There are 40 beds - 38 are "occupied" and 2 are "available". Generally, this info sits best in service description unless there is a system need to try and get real-time info on homeless bed availability
6	Case	Transaction, Interaction, Case Management, Case Coordination			Is the "case" always the individual and the single or sequence of service activities that surround that individual, or the "thing" that happens at each service point (e.g. lunch here, bed there, counseling somewhere else, financial assistance elsewhere)?
7	Consent	Informed consent, verbal consent, documented consent, implied consent	verbal, implied, or written client permission --		There may be some case to have a sub-level for the type of consent as new confidentiality/privacy legislation might have exact requirements depending on the circumstances. In "traditional" I&R, it has been OK for a staff person to make a little note, "asked X if it was OK for me to make some calls on her behalf, she agreed and provided her phone number for me to call back." But some government agencies require written consent in nearly all circumstances.
8	Agency	organization
9	Need	Service requirement, Service need			"Need" has a transaction outcome. Is the need "met" or "unmet" -- which, in turn, might means different things in different services. Did someone receive the addiction treatment program or did they receive the child care space
10	Program	Service requirement, Service need	A group of services (some primary and some secondary) provided by an agency and organized into a program. One organization's job training program may, for example, also offer vocational assessment to help people determine the type of employment they are suited for and job placement assistance following training in addition to the training itself. This is a richer program than one that simply involves training. Another example is a domestic violence shelter. One shelter may only provide a safe place to stay for residents -- i.e. a service -- while another may have counseling, assistance in obtaining a temporary restraining order (TRO), a program for the woman's children, etc. -- i.e. a program. While services are essentially the same across organizations, the definitions of programs may differ significantly. Another example would be a standardized set of services that is available under the same publicly known name at a variety of agencies (examples would include Help Me Grow and WIC).	AIRS Standards, Glossary	I tend to use programs and services as synonyms for convenience, and for the public, I imagine it is the same thing (i.e. it is something that meets their needs regardless of what it is called). For indexing/classification, one tries to index the program as a whole as opposed to the individual services within it (e.g. can someone only apply for the whole package or for the individual services within the package) -- in one case it may be described as a program, in another as individual services (Clive)
11	Service	Program, Project	The discrete types of assistance an agency delivers to its clients. Specific types of services are essentially the same no matter what agency is providing them.	AIRS Standards, Glossary
12	Release of Information
13	Service Groups	Service Clusters, Service Types	A “Service Group” is a data element that allows a group of identical or similar services to be identified under the same customized banner. For example, a resource database might identify a number of different services relating to food security as "Food" or a number of programs and services targetted towards the victims/survivors of domestic violence as "Domestic Violence". This provides other options for being able to organize and display services for ease of retrieval.	Adapted from AIRS Standards, Glossary
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17	Service/Program Enrollment	Service/Program Registration
18	Release of Information	Information release, client authorization
19	Referral		Service/program identified by a human service professional that meets the assessed needs of a client and provided to the client at the conclusion of the interaction. The definitive element distinguishing a referral is that the client is aware of a problem, but requires assistance in determining the specific nature of his/her need and specific solution options that may be available to resolve it.	Adapted from AIRS Standards, Glossary	This word (sort of) has two meanings -- within some professionals (e.g. health care), a 'referral' is a mandatory requirement (a patient cannot register for a program without a referral from another party. In most circumstances, a 'referral' is a 'recommendation/suggestion' that an individual should enroll or comtact a particular service/program
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21		program
22		program
23		program
24	Site	location	The physical locations either/or from which an agency administers its activities or at which clients access services provided by an agency. All agencies have a main site; many have additional site locations or branch offices.	Adapted from AIRS Standards, Glossary	There are some services that are totally Internet-based and sometimes, the 'site' is a bit of a construct
25	SiteService	program location	A mechanism within a software package for representing one specific service provided at a specific location (site). Service sites are the most discrete level of the resource database structure. Data collected at this level allows for very specific information about one service (home delivered meals) at a specific site (Salvation Army’s West Side Office) to be retrieved and displayed. A service site may contain, for example, phone numbers specific to that one service at the one site	AIRS Standards, Glossary
26	Service Event	benefit, service, assistance			The activity that takes place within a service/program which is provided by the agency and received by the client (?)
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31	links:	NIEM NHSIA definitions	https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/assets/i_datadictionaryandniemmapping_d01.xlsx
32		AIRS Style Guide	http://www.airs.org/files/public/AIRS_StyleGuide_FinalAugust2012_FullXSDVersion.pdf
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