Harmonizing Location, Areas Served

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Harmonizing Location, Areas Served Boundaries

• InformOntario WebinarOctober 20th, 2009
• John Allec, CRSFindhelp Information Services

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INTERSECTION

• The major street crossing closest to an
  organization or program address
• AIRS recommended elementTravel Information,
  such as cross streets and public transportation
  information.

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INTERSECTION

• For general, quick reference -- not for precise
  location.
• So list a major corner most people would be
  familiar with, not the actual closest
  intersection.
• Leave blank where there is no site address.
• For consistency, you should settle beforehand the
  major streets that you want to include (perhaps
  the bolded streets on a local map)

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INTERSECTION

• List the north/south street, followed by the word
  and and then the west/east street.
• Do not use characters like / or -- those
  can cause technical problems.
• Always include appropriate direction indicators
  (York St W or rue York Ouest) even where
  buildings are on the corner of a dividing line.
• (Buildings on the south and east sides of a
  street are usually odd-numbered on the north and
  west sides even-numbered.)

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INTERSECTION

• Examples
• Trent St and York Blvd W
• rue Trent et boulevard York Ouest
• Concession Rd, 1 km west of Guelph Line
• chemin Concession, 1 km à louest de Guelph Line

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LOCATION

• The appropriate city, town, suburb, neighbourhood
  or (sometimes) regionindicating where an
  organization or serviceis based
• AIRS recommended element
• Travel Information, such as cross streets, public
  transit information or other information to
  facilitate travel to the location.
• In CIOC Located in Community field

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LOCATION

• Based on the SITE ADDRESS,
• select one value (only) from the Communities
  Table,
• the lowest and most precise value available.

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LOCATION

• Where confidentiality is crucial (e.g. an
  assaulted womens shelter)
• a vaguer, higher-level Community can be entered
  (Niagara Region, for example, instead of St
  Catharines).

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LOCATION

• Where there is no site address listed
• (e.g. for some virtual services),
• try to determine if a home community is publicly
  known (from MAIL ADDRESS perhaps).
• If not, select Ontario (or even Canada) for
  province-wide or nation-wide services.
• Choosing Null for Location (in CIOC) is not an
  option. Records will not show up at all on
  211Ontario.ca (e.g.) if any community is
  specified in the search.

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AREAS SERVED

• The searchable value or values selected from the
  Communities Table that cover the entire catchment
  area for a service.
• All records must have at least one Areas Served
  value.
• AIRS required element
• Geographic area served

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AREAS SERVED

• These values are used for geographical searching
  on sites such as 211Ontario.ca.
• But they are not be displayed to the user.
• You must select one or more values (from the
  Communities Table), so that every part of an
  agencys catchment area is represented and
  searchable.

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AREAS SERVED

• If in doubt, choose a higher value. That does
  mean the Areas Served values may include more
  area than the true catchment area, but that is
  okay.
• Consider the province-wide system and be
  practical and flexible.

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AREAS SERVED

• Code only for the practical catchment area,
  rather than what might be the formal or official
  boundaries.
• (Formal or official boundaries must be displayed
  to the user, so those are entered separately into
  BOUNDARIES.
• For a general hospital, for example, only code
  for its surrounding region (e.g. Peterborough
  County), and not stretching out into areas that
  surround other similar hospitals in neighbouring
  regions (such as Hastings County).
• If the hospital insists they serve all of
  Ontario, you can list Ontario as text in
  BOUNDARIES. That will not affect geographical
  searching.

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AREAS SERVED

• A childrens hospital, though, could be coded for
  a large area like Eastern Ontario if there are
  no others in eastern Ontario. But you would
  usually not list Ontario, as there are other
  children's hospitals in the province.
• On the other hand, the Bob Rumball Home for the
  Deaf (in Barrie) is the only such facility for
  older adults in Canada, so it is suitable that it
  have the value Canada.

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BOUNDARIES

• A statement read by the user describing the
  catchment area or physical boundaries within
  which a service is available.
• On 211Ontario.ca, for example, this is the only
  catchment area information displayed (though with
  the tag Area served).
• AIRS required element
• Geographic area served

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BOUNDARIES

• The practice traditionally in Ontario has been to
  usually enter something in this field.
• But that needs to change. The standard is now
  that in the majority of records, this field
  should be left blank.

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BOUNDARIES

• Boundaries should only be entered
• where there are official or practical
  restrictions as to where potential clients live
  and can be served, for example most food banks.
  Those outside those boundaries cannot be served,
  those within the boundaries will be served if
  they are otherwise eligible.
• or where it is helpful to clarify that there are
  no restrictions, despite a geographically-specific
  name for example.

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BOUNDARIES

• Many services we list typically provide their
  services regardless of where the potential client
  is situated, as long as they can make their way
  to the agency, e.g.
• child care centres
• long term care facilities
• homeless shelters
• housing services
• walk-in clinics
• meal programs

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BOUNDARIES

• For most such services, Boundaries should be
  left blank, and no catchment area will be
  displayed to users of 211Ontario.ca, for example.
• The understanding is that if there is no
  catchment area specified, where the potential
  client lives is not an issue.

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BOUNDARIES

• A big challenge for all of us is that if an
  agency is asked if they have a catchment area,
  they often feel that they must provide you with
  one perhaps something vague like Ottawa area.
• That is typically not useful for anyone, and is
  often technically not true so therefore
  problematic. (They will indeed serve people from
  outside the Ottawa area, as long as they can get
  there).
• Such feedback should be clarified and ignored.

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BOUNDARIES

• If there is a catchment area you should alert
  users about, enter any text in BOUNDARIES that
  best describes this.
• This might be
• a neighbourhood, town or city
• a formal or an informal region
• a large area such as Ontario or Canada
• a set of street boundaries
• a set of postal codes
• or any other type of text.

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BOUNDARIES

• Crafting the BOUNDARIES text
• Be as wordy as you need to be, as this
  information should beexact and thorough --
  within reason. For very complex boundaries, you
  can use something like Parts of orEastern
  half of Ward 21.
• There is no need to match how names are listed in
  the Communities Table (e.g. use City of
  Hamilton rather than the Communities Tables
  Hamilton (City of).
• In some cases, the text displayed in BOUNDARIES
  will just repeat the value hidden in AREAS
  SERVED. But you must enter both.

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BOUNDARIES

• STREET OUTLINES
• Where the catchment area is best described as the
  boundaries of four streets, order those as north,
  south, west, east, and indicate which is which
• Abbey Dr (north) to Lake Ontario (south) Park
  Lane (west) to Runaway Blvd W (east)
• List street names in full with any direction
  indicators, e.g. York St W.

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BOUNDARIES

• Be scrupulous with phrases like Greater Toronto
  Area.
• Many agencies say they serve the GTA meaning
  perhaps City of Toronto and Peel Region but
  then you find out they cant send anyone to
  Halton Region, York Region or Durham Region.

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• Questions???
• John Allec
• jallec_at_findhelp.ca
• 416-392-4572