Our taxonomy, or tagging system, is a simple way to categorize human services and human situations. With these common categories service providers, navigators, and people in need, can find services quickly and easily.
How it Works
Tags are the way that we categorize programs and who they serve. For example, a Cancer Support Group program may have the service tags “support groups” and the serving tag “cancer”. That way, when someone is searching for “support groups” or “cancer” this program will come up in search results.
The Aunt Bertha Data Team adds service tags and serving tags to each program they create based on their research.
Program Claimers who have claimed a program can also update their tags based on the services they offer and the populations that they serve.
Tags appear on the program card. The service tags can be found under “Main Services” or “Other Services, and the situation/attribute tags can be found under “Serving” as in, the populations that this program is serving.
Service tags are used to describe the services that the program offers and are specifically, why someone would go to that program. Service tags populate the top category menu and make it easy to search for programs using the keyword search. Service tags include meals, transportation, medical care, legal assistance, temporary shelter, etc.
There are Main Services and Other Services.
Main vs Other Service Tags
A Main Service is the main need a Seeker might use this program to fill.
Example: If someone's main need is a temporary shelter, they would search for programs tagged in the following way:
Main Tag(s): “Temporary Shelter”
Other Service tags are the other services offered by the program -- or the services a Seeker may receive once they are a part of that program.
Example: A homeless shelter offers childcare to individuals staying at the shelter, but the individual must be staying at the shelter to receive childcare. The program would be tagged in the following way:
Main Service Tag: “Emergency Shelter” or “Temporary Shelter”
Other Service Tag: “childcare”
Other Service tags are not taken into account in search. They are merely there to show the person looking for services a complete view of all the services available. In the example above, the Seeker can see that childcare is available when they stay at this shelter.
There are different levels of service tags. The broadest category is considered the “parent” or “first level”. Other tags underneath that broad category are called “children” or “second level” or “third level” tags.
Example: Here is a hierarchy currently in our taxonomy:
Mental Health Care (Parent - Level 1)
Anger Management (Child - Level 2)
Bereavement (Child - Level 2)
Counseling (Child - Level 2)
If you search for a child tag, you will only see programs with that tag. However, if you search for the broader parent tag, the search results will show programs with the parent tag, as well as any programs that have the children tags. This allows Seekers to browse by a broader range of services, or dig in to a specific kind of service.
These are common attributes about a person that may impact who a program serves. These can be used to help match a person's situation with available programs and populate the "Personal Filters". Serving tags include things like age, gender, diagnosis, citizenship, etc.