Activities and Services are the programs you offer and related efforts to serve students experiencing homelessness. People in the system are called participants because, through your efforts, they "participate” in the activities and services you offer. Thus, accurately setting up Activities and Services in Student SupportTracker is crucial.
Activity examples include:
- Coordination of Services between Schools/Agencies
- Counseling
- Family Picnic
- Professional Development
Service examples include:
- Backpack program
- Bus Passes
- Clothing
- Food
- Housing Support
- School Supplies
There are three types of Activities. These include Scheduled, Unscheduled, and Service-type activities.
- Services - on-demand services provided to individuals. Services are managed in the Services section of the left-hand navigation menu.
- Scheduled - activities with a regular schedule and typically have a fixed roster of expected participants. These types of activities are managed in the Activities section of the left-hand navigation menu.
- Unscheduled activities are those that don't have a schedule, and the participants vary from one date to another and are not pre-enrolled. Unscheduled activities can include activities that are not specifically related to students, such as Coordinating Services between your program and Schools/Agencies. These types of activities are managed in the Activities section of the left-hand navigation menu.
Here is more information about these three types of activity related to your work with students experiencing homelessness, as well as links to more detailed documents.
Services: Most services offered to students are just that - services. Students' needs are usually not planned and thus not usually scheduled ahead of time. Services may include bus passes, food vouchers, backpacks, school supplies, and clothing. Services are the most common and easiest activity to set up and record for a student. See the Managing Services article to learn more.
Unscheduled: Does your program offer counseling? For example, if counseling is available from your staff on an as-needed basis, an unscheduled Counseling activity with any "anytime" session could be set up. When a student shows up and gets some help, it is easy to record their participation once the activity is set up. While primarily used for tracking services offered to students, Student SupportTracker can also be used to track efforts beyond the student level. Such activities include coordinating efforts with other agencies, attracting and retaining homeless youth, and providing supplies to non-school facilities. The time your staff spends on these unscheduled activities can also be tracked. Note that these non-student-related services should be recorded on the Admin site, not a school site. See the Creating Unscheduled Activities article to learn more.
Scheduled: Two examples of Scheduled activities that may be relevant to your program are Family Picnic and Professional Development for district staff. Both activities have a set time and would probably have a list of expected attendees. When such activities are set up, recording who has attended as expected and who has not will be simple. See the Creating Scheduled Activities article to learn more.
Other support articles related to Activities and Services are also available: