What is service profiling?

Service Profiling or Mapping, is when an area is researched to see what services are provident to the community living within the area. An example of this would be if a county council wanted to know if the residents within the council were being provided with sufficient childcare, they would carry out a service profile on child care, collecting information regarding all child care services available to residents, the cost, the areas, capacity, age groups and so forth. The information would then be complied into a report indicating the gaps or overlaps in the child care services being provided. Hand in hand with this a needs assessment would need to be carried out, which is another piece of research which contains the information regarding the residents need for child care in detail. Together with the service profile the needs assessment would help inform the county council whether more or less child care was required, or whether some changes in the child care provided were needed.