The principal activities undertaken by the CCB's Community Resource Inventory Committee (CRIC) and the host agency in 1998-99, and the results, are described below.

Design and distribution of the organizational profiles - The CRIC began development of the organizational profiles in early 1998. The provider profile was designed specifically to include all of the information required by First Call For Help for its annual update of agency information, as well as issues of importance for the Broward County Children's Services Board, making it unnecessary to send out a separate survey. A separate section was included in both profiles to gather information for the Community Assessment Information Clearinghouse. Provider profiles (see Attachment A-1) were mailed to approximately 700 organizations in July, 1998, with support from the CSB and the Broward Healthy Start Coalition. Funder profiles (see Attachment A-2) were mailed to approximately 100 organizations in January, 1999. More than a dozen open training sessions targeted at agency staff that would be responsible for filling out the form were offered to both providers and funders at the time of survey distribution. Diskette versions of the profiles were made available to enable the forms to be filled out on a computer; the same forms were posted on the CCB web site.

Completion of the Memorandum of Understanding among Members of the CCB - The Memorandum of Understanding (see Attachment B), initially drafted with language that would have made it a requirement for service providers funded by CCB members to submit the Provider Organizational Profile, was modified to reflect the need of each funder to either require or encourage its service providers to participate in the survey. Some funders, such as the Children's Services Board (CSB) and the Broward Employment and Training Administration (BETA), did make filling out the provider profile in 1998-99 a requirement for the 1999-00 funding cycle.

Structure the database at First Call For Help for CCB use - In order to avoid duplication and to reduce the cost of developing the database side of the resource inventory, the existing information and referral database (IRis) used by the host agency was adapted by its creator (Benchmark Enterprises) to accommodate the additional data collected for the Countywide Resource Inventory. Staff at First Call For Help subsequently developed routines to extract the data from IRis and make it available in a Microsoft Access database, suitable for use by members of the CCB.

Get timely responses from Providers and Funders - Initial expectations for a 3- to 6-month response cycle proved to be unrealistic. Profiles continued to be accepted throughout the year, and updates were allowed in order to correct or complete information. Follow-up letters and contacts were made on an on-going basis throughout the year in an effort to increase the response rate. At the end of June, 1999, there were 275 provider profiles in the database, with information on almost two thousand funded programs, and funding of more than $520 million in 1998-99 (see Attachment D-1). Although the profiles returned represent only part of the universe of potential respondents, it is believed that these organizations are responsible for a substantial part of all service delivery in Broward County. In addition, 19 funder profiles were received, accounting for approximately $125 million in resources distributed to service providers in 1998-99 (see Attachment D-2). This represents less than one quarter of the resources reported by providers. First Call For Help staff provided technical assistance by phone to respondents who called with questions.

Work with complex organizations to find appropriate ways to respond to the profiles - Both the public school system and the hospital districts provide services with characteristics that required additional effort to find the best way to present information for inclusion in the inventory. An acceptable work-around was found for the School Board, which required the submittal of a total of 12 provider profiles in order to report on the diversity of services. Although a general framework was developed for the hospital districts to use, neither the North Broward Hospital District nor Memorial Healthcare System submitted a provider organizational profile for this year's inventory. Other organizations also required specific adaptations, which were worked out on an individual basis.

Learn to use the InfoLine Taxonomy of Human Services - First Call For Help incorporated the InfoLine Taxonomy of Human Services as a component of IRis for the first time during this year's implementation of the CRI. First Call For Help staff performed the initial classification of services reported on the provider and funder organizational profiles. This information will be printed up and returned to each organization for review as part of the feedback from the resource inventory in year one and preparation for the second year of the resource inventory. The eight initial agencies that will link to the Broward Information Network were encouraged to acquire copies of the taxonomy and to begin classification of their services for use on the BIN.

Cross-check providers and funders to ensure coverage - The resource inventory builds an automatic cross-referencing mechanism into its design, by making it possible to compare funder information about programs funded for each provider with the provider information about programs by each source of funding. A printed report will be given to each funder to review with the service providers they fund to ensure consistency. This feature will prove much more useful when the information is more complete. Funding information will have to be reviewed to identify double counting whenever organizations receive local funds and pass them on to other local service providers (for example, Family Central).

Quality assurance for the data provided - Profiles must be reviewed for both completeness and consistency. Completeness considers not only whether all organizations have responded, but also whether the information provided is complete. Among the profiles in the database, there are incomplete responses. Consistency concerns whether the information provided is accurate and "makes sense." A small number of consistency checks was identified during review of the data received this year. Additional consistency checks need to be built into the data entry cycle for the second year effort.

Address concerns about ways in which the data is gathered and used - Concerns were raised about the collection of funding information, especially from non-public sources. The host agency (First Call For Help) also raised some issues with regard to the distribution of the resource inventory in a database format, which would allow access to the data for individual organizations. These issues were overcome by agreeing that non-public funding sources will be identified only in generic categories, and by distributing a more comprehensive description of how the data will be used so that each respondent will be able to decide whether and how to respond. In addition, a draft set of protocols for the use of the database was developed for consideration by the CCB in time for distribution of the results of year one and the initiation of year two activities (see Attachment C).