Common definitions

Terms

Consumer served

A person with a Consumer Service Record (CSR) open at any point in the reporting period, whether carried over or newly opened, including a person who signed a waiver of an Independent Living Plan. The federal Program Performance Report counts this way in Section 3; the check that carried-over plus new equals total served is the first rule in the data quality engine. Not counted: a person who received only information and referral, a participant in a group training with no CSR, a family member recorded under the consumer's CSR.

Information and referral contact

One request for information or a referral, answered, from a person who does not have an open CSR for the same matter. Counted per contact, not per person, and reported separately from consumers served, never added to them. A Center that opens a CSR for the same person later counts the person once, as a consumer.

Goal set

A goal recorded in a consumer's Independent Living Plan, or in the consumer's record where a waiver was signed, in one of the federal goal categories, during the reporting period. A goal carried over from a previous period is not set again.

Goal achieved

A goal set in this or an earlier period that the consumer, not the Center, agreed was reached during the reporting period. Achieved can never exceed set plus carried-over; a Center whose achieved count equals its set count across the board is recording goals at the moment they are achieved, which hides every goal still in progress and is flagged.

Institutional transition

A consumer who moved from a nursing home or other institution to a community-based residence during the reporting period with the Center's assistance, counted under the federal relocation goal category. Diversion, meaning a consumer at documented risk of institutional placement who remained in the community, is reported separately and never combined with transitions in the same number.

Reporting period

For a Center's Program Performance Report, 30 September of the report year to 29 September of the following year. For the state's Independent Living Services report, 1 October to 30 September of the report year. The two are offset by one year: a Center report labelled 2023 lines up with a state report labelled 2024. Every comparison between the two must say which period it used.

Reach

Consumers served, divided by the civilian noninstitutionalized population with a disability in the same geography from the most recent American Community Survey five-year estimate, expressed per 10,000. Reported by county where the Center's county table is available and by state otherwise. The denominator excludes people in nursing homes and other institutions, so reach understates the population Independent Living exists to serve; a report that uses it says so.

Served, underserved and unserved county

A State Plan may define these as it chooses. The proposal is that the definition be quantitative and reachable: a served county is one where reach is at or above a stated percentile of peer counties nationally, an underserved county is below it, and an unserved county has no consumer served in the period. A threshold that no county in the state has ever met measures an aspiration, not performance.

Part B and Part C activity

Where a state contract or subaward form separates consumers, services and expenditures by funding source, those columns are reported as filed and never merged. Where only the federal report exists, Part B and Part C outcomes cannot be separated and any claim about one of them alone is marked as unsupported.

Survey respondent

One completed or partly completed response to an instrument, identified by a random response id, never by a person. A person who answers twice is two responses unless the organization chose to deduplicate and says how. A partly completed response is reported as such, not discarded.