My Community Directory

Keeping people well in their community

WA Primary Health Alliance (WAPHA) has a unique role within the broad health and community sector to facilitate access to the right care in the right place at the right time.  WAPHA has partnered with My Community Directory to lead the development and promotion of an online resource to connect people and services across WA.

Please share this page or download this Information Sheet to let others in your networks know about this resource.

Suggest new listings through the My5 tool, which makes it easy for anyone to add content to the Directory.

 

Search for services in your community




 

What is My Community Directory?

At its simplest My Community Directory is an online directory of local health, social and community services. Features and function within the site have been developed to connect people to and between services, supporting three core users – Community Members, Service Providers and Service Planners.

The Directory is free for Community Members to:

  • Search for services in a ‘place’, finding all listed health and social services within a geographic area, using a search box or the location service on mobile devices.
  • Travel to services by using Google maps and ‘get directions’ functions within the service listings
  • Find the next available GP appointment through Health Engine, with ‘Book Now’ buttons included in the search results for general practices that use that booking system
  • add details for services and activities in their own community to improve information to help others
 My Community Directory is free for Service Providers to:

  • List their service and update that listing
  • Connect to other services for the benefit of their own professional networks and to support connections for service users
  • See what other services are within a search area
  • Share page links and contact details via email or download pages as a .pdf

The partnership with My Community Directory assists WAPHA’s role as Service Planners to:

  • Map a broad range of services within a search area
  • Use data on what people search for and where they are searching from to inform service mapping and gapping
  • Gain an insight into what networks of services are being searched for together, for example ‘mental health’ and ‘sports clubs’
  • Provide reports and data to help services with their own continuous quality improvement

 

Why My Community Directory?

My Community Directory is an established platform, not something WAPHA is developing from scratch. The Directory platform is already used in other states and territories and partnerships already exist in WA between My Community Directory and the Mental Health Commission, Uniting Care West and some local governments.

My Community Directory is a shared resource, working on the principles of shared data and crowd sourcing to give collective ownership and responsibility for the Directory entries. Functions within the site allow users of the directory to report where information is incorrect. My Community Directory sends reminders to service listings to check that details are accurate and has a range of automated systems to check if services are still in operation.

 

 Why does WAPHA think that investing in My Community Directory is important?

Consultation with community and service providers across the health and social care system has identified the need for more information on what services are available and where and how they can be accessed. WAPHA sees supporting and promoting this platform as one way of reducing fragmentation and improving system navigation for service providers and community.

WAPHA and the City of Albany have worked together to populate and promote My Community Directory. Working together around a common directory has resulted in a sustainable shared resource for the whole community. Read about the joint launch, hosted in Albany in March 2018.

 

How can you support work on the Directory?

A well populated and frequently used directory will benefit community, service providers and service planners. Check your own listing or that of services in your local area and either add missing information for free, or contact Jane Harwood (Stakeholder Engagement Manager) on 62724948 or jane.harwood@wapha.org.au for more information on how you can contribute to work  on the Directory project.