Sub-contracted agencies

[DaleFitch]

How would sub-contracted agencies be captured? For example, I know of an "agency" that has about 10 programs. One of these programs is Head Start and this "agency" is the fiduciary agent for all Head Start services in the region. However, the actual Head Start service is delivered through contracted agencies in the community. These other agencies also have their own programming separate from the fiduciary agent. Would some of the data in the directory end up being redundant in that regard? That's not necessarily problematic except when it comes to updates. The larger "agency" will most likely have sufficient staff to ensure good quality updates, but a local smaller agency, whose phone number a parent may need, may not have the staff to attend to such.

[eric-jahn]

I think NHSIA's model gets at this kind of notion. They have federal agencies, administrative agencies, managing agencies, service provider agencies: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hserv/open-human-services/master/doc/NHSIA_conceptual_data_model.jpeg

[DaleFitch]

Yes, this captures my thinking. Specifically, the FederalAgency,ManagingAgecy, Administrative Agency, ServiceProvider path. Better yet, it also captures ServiceProviders who may have contracts with different BusinessOrganizations. Question: can we simply resume this schema?

[georgiasales]

This is not a subcontracting example per se, but there are other relationships that can be tracked among agencies including things like affiliations, parent/child relationships, collaborative projects and situations where staff from one agency are outstationed in another organization and there is a programmatic relationship between the organization's own program and the services offered by the staff from the original agency, e.g., the host organization may be a multipurpose-purpose senior center which offers health screening services which are actually provided by staff from a local health center. Sometimes one agency will provide space for and "house" another with no programmatic relationship.

[pollymcdaniel]

I agree with Georgia. There are specific rules for structuring agencies, see the AIRS Standards and AIRS ABCs of I&R - as well as the many other AIRS documents available describing best practices for this. As for Georgia's last example, the program would be listed with the agency providing the service, the location would be the space where is "housing" the program.

[DaleFitch]

Georgia's point will become extremely important if we can get large, public agencies to adopt the vocabulary as they have to track this exact thing, i.e., providing some of their own services, contracting out other services. Even when contracted out, federal agencies hold the state agency accountable for the outcome.