For years, residents seeking heath and human service assistance in the Delaware Valley have faced a maze of options like Medicare, county assistance, Social Security, disability programs, job training, and drug counseling – with no single source for information about them. Without an easy alternative, many people would turn to 911 as a way to get answers, in some cases, overburdening county emergency call systems.
Azavea partnered with the Delaware Valley Association for the Education of Young Children (DVAEYC) and six United Way organizations serving Southeastern Pennsylvania to develop Connect211.org, a web-based application that enables the public and social workers to find and route their way to more than 12,000 organizations and service providers for health, family, education, employment, food, and shelter in the region.
Visitors to the site can easily identify service providers based on where they live and can use the routing function to plan a trip between their homes and the providers they have selected. In addition to driving directions, the system also includes bus, subway, and train routes on the maps. Users can search the database for services at a range of geographic levels including county, township, zip code, neighborhood, and distance from a specific address. Results are listed by address and displayed on a map that enables users to select specific search results, zoom in and out, and pan in any direction. DVAEYC updates the data and service provider information on an ongoing basis to fill in gaps. Connect211.org is free and for Philadelphia residents who lack access to the internet, the Free Library of Philadelphia has provided a Connect211.org link on its computers.
While the application uses Microsoft .Net framework, Microsoft SQL Server, ESRI’s ArcIMS, ArcSDE and ArcWeb Services, a few years have passed since we originally developed it and the technology has evolved, so we are currently working with DVAEYC and the United Way to build a Phase II for Connect211.org that will leverage more contemporary technology.
