Apply Now: Learn to Advance Racial Equity in Public Data Integration

Action­able Intel­li­gence for Social Pol­i­cy (AISP), an ini­tia­tive based at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Pol­i­cy and Prac­tice, has issued a request for appli­ca­tions for a train­ing and tech­ni­cal assis­tance pro­gram to help edu­ca­tion, child wel­fare and oth­er state and local agen­cies advance racial equi­ty in their data inte­gra­tion efforts.

Fund­ed by the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion and the Robert Wood John­son Foun­da­tion, AISP’s Equi­ty in Prac­tice Learn­ing Com­mu­ni­ty will work with com­mu­ni­ties to build, test and refine new mod­els for incor­po­rat­ing res­i­dents’ per­spec­tives into key deci­sions about the devel­op­ment and use of data across sec­tors that serve chil­dren and fam­i­lies, with an empha­sis on health equi­ty and racial justice.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of inter­est­ed com­mu­ni­ties can down­load the request for appli­ca­tions, with sub­mis­sions due by March 25, 2022. 

Coun­ter­ing His­toric Bias

The Casey Foun­da­tion has a long-stand­ing com­mit­ment to using data to build a shared under­stand­ing of the needs of chil­dren, young adults and fam­i­lies; to iden­ti­fy­ing bar­ri­ers to achiev­ing bet­ter youth out­comes; and to sup­port­ing and pro­mot­ing solu­tions for over­com­ing these obsta­cles. Shar­ing admin­is­tra­tive data among state and local agen­cies serv­ing chil­dren and fam­i­lies can con­tribute to achiev­ing these goals.

Yet cross-sec­tor data sys­tems can also rein­force lega­cies of dis­crim­i­na­to­ry poli­cies and sup­port inequitable resource allo­ca­tion, access to ser­vices and out­comes. Many pub­lic agen­cies have not ade­quate­ly exam­ined and acknowl­edged bias in their his­to­ry — a bias that is often baked into con­tem­po­rary admin­is­tra­tive data. 

The Equi­ty in Prac­tice Learn­ing Com­mu­ni­ty builds on a tool kit AISP devel­oped — also fund­ed by the Casey Foun­da­tion — to put racial equi­ty at the cen­ter of data inte­gra­tion. With the new tech­ni­cal assis­tance oppor­tu­ni­ty, ​“AISP is com­mit­ted to work­ing with par­tic­i­pat­ing sites to cre­ate a new kind of data infra­struc­ture that shares and builds pow­er and knowl­edge with the com­mu­ni­ties of col­or that need sys­tems change most,” says Christo­pher Kings­ley, Casey’s direc­tor of Data Tools and Measurement.

Cus­tomized Train­ing and Coaching

From June 2022 through Novem­ber 2024, par­tic­i­pat­ing sites in the Equi­ty in Prac­tice Learn­ing Com­mu­ni­ty will focus on shifts in pol­i­cy and prac­tice across the data life cycle: plan­ning, col­lec­tion of data, access to data, the use of sta­tis­ti­cal tools, analy­sis and report­ing and dis­sem­i­na­tion. The work will exam­ine cross-agency data gov­er­nance, research agen­das, legal agree­ments, staffing and com­mu­ni­ty participation.

The select­ed com­mu­ni­ties will receive:

• cus­tomized train­ing and coach­ing from expe­ri­enced practitioners;
• access to a com­mu­ni­ty of peers and men­tors work­ing at the inter­sec­tion of data and racial equity;
• tuition and expens­es for trav­el, lodg­ing and meals for site teams of up to four peo­ple for two, two-and-a-half-day meet­ings at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Penn­syl­va­nia; and
• direct grants of $50,000 to sup­port com­mu­ni­ty engagement.

AISP will host an option­al appli­cant webi­nar at 2 p.m. ET on Wednes­day, Feb. 16. Sites will be select­ed and noti­fied by April 25.