Parent Know How Directory (formerly ISPP - Information System for Parents and Providers)

Creating a coherent and meaningful way of categorising Families Services within the Parent Know How Directory (formerly ISPP)

Parent Know How Directory services (formerly the Information System for Parents and Providers) delivered by the Department of Children Schools and Families in partnership with local authorities and Families Information Services will from September 2009:

• gather childcare and families services information across all local authorities in England
• combine this information with details of national services and potentially other datasets
• make it available to parents and practitioners through a variety of channels including Family Information Services, DirectGov, Parent Know How services providers and potentially other authorised third and private sector publishers who have reach to those audiences

The Parent Know How Directory vocabulary provides a:

• navigation structure suitable for web sites displaying information about services and facilities which may be of benefit to parents, prospective parents, children or young people
• subject vocabulary against which information can be tagged to improve searches by a central "aggregator" and local search engines using the information

The Parent Know How Directory only covers services and facilities, not publications. The target audience is parents and prospective parents.

The vocabulary is provided in spreadsheet format, as a Word document, a document containing changes from the previous version and its native Zthes XML format.

The complementary controlled lists document describes other controlled vocabularies to be used by PKHD to describe services and facilities. It draws on controlled lists maintained by esd-toolkit and elsewhere. They are available in their native Zthes XML format: accreditation, area covered, facility, language spoken, channel, referral criteria, role, quality assurance levels and provision of positive activities.

Guidance to the use of the vocabularies and complementary controlled lists is available here.

If would like to know more about the Parent Know How Directory (formerly ISPP) project or want help or support in adopting these vocabularies, please contact support.pkhdirectory@tribalgroup.co.uk or phone 0845 873 0132. Information on all aspects of implementing the Directory is available from the PKHD support site at www.pkhdsupport.org.uk.

The vocabulary is Crown Copyright developed by the Department for Children, Schools and Families, Parent Know How Team.