Terms & Rules for Households and Participant-to-Participant Relationships in Compyle
Overview
When developing the Household form and linking features for Compyle, we drew inspiration from the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey from 2020-2024. This is where much of the language describing households comes from, such as the Household Type, the Head of Household, and the Relationship to Head of Household choices. These terms will hopefully be familiar to agency/program staff and to funders.
Moreover, for clarity and consistency those terms are used to define the rules for connecting Participants to Households and managing those relationships.
Household Terms
- Household: a group of people who live together and share resources, who may have kinship ties or may be unrelated
- Head of Household: an adult responsible for the household and serving as the primary contact.
- Household Member: one of the participants in the household, including the head of household
- Member Role: how the participant is related to the head of household (Spouse, Partner, Roommate, Child, Grandchild, Foster Child, Parent, Parent-in-law, Brother/ Sister, Grandparent, Son-in-law/ Daughter-in-law, Other Relative, Other Nonrelative)
- Current Member: a participant in the household now, an active member
- Former Member: a participant who was in the household but left, an inactive member
- Household Type: the structure of the household, how the members are connected
- Family: Married Couple
- Family: Unmarried Partners
- Family: Single Male Head of Household, No Spouse/Partner Present
- Family: Single Female Head of Household No Spouse/Partner Present
- Nonfamily Household
Household Linking Rules
- Each Household will need a Household record
- Each member of that household will need a Participant record
- Each Household will have one and only one Head of Household.
- The first Participant added to a Household will be designated as the Head of Household by default. Their role can be changed using the Manage Relationships feature.
- Each Participant can be actively linked to one Household at a time.
A Participant can be a former household member in more than one Household, but they may only be active in one household at a time.- Each member has a role in the Household.
- A Household can be linked to a new Participant or an existing Participant.
- A Participant can be linked to a new Household or an existing Household.
- The relationship can be viewed from the Participant form, the Participant folder, the Household form, and the Household folder.
Changes - Managing Households Over Time
If household membership changes, you can remove Participants from a household. The participants will appear in the Former Members section of the Members tab within the Household folder.
If the Head of Household is leaving, another household member must be designated as the Head of Household under Manage Relationships before the former Head of Household is removed.
Archiving a Participant will make that person a former member of theHousehold.