Watch Our Webinar: Integrating Data to Improve Family Outcomes

A webi­nar from the Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion — now avail­able via record­ing — exam­ines how orga­ni­za­tions are lever­ag­ing data to enhance both pro­grams and out­comes for families.

The 60-minute webi­nar fea­tures experts from the Casey Foun­da­tion as well as Gar­rett Coun­ty Com­mu­ni­ty Action in Mary­land and Edu­ca­tion­al Alliance in New York. Dur­ing the ses­sion, pan­elists explain how their teams are col­lect­ing, shar­ing and using data more effec­tive­ly and how these efforts are inform­ing and improv­ing their work with families.

The con­ver­sa­tion, record­ed on May 17, 2018, is based on ​“Advanc­ing Two-Gen­er­a­tion Approach­es: Inte­grat­ing Data to Sup­port Fam­i­lies.” This Casey Foun­da­tion report is part of a series focused on exam­in­ing com­mon chal­lenges that orga­ni­za­tions face when try­ing to serve chil­dren and par­ents at the same time.

“We view data as essen­tial to dri­ving two-gen­er­a­tion suc­cess, and yet it is prob­a­bly the biggest chal­lenge orga­ni­za­tions con­front as they lean into a two-gen­er­a­tion approach,” says Rosa Maria Cas­tañe­da, a senior asso­ciate at Casey. ​“The good news is there is inno­v­a­tive work happening.”

WATCH THE WEBINAR

Inte­grat­ing data — and build­ing inte­grat­ed data sys­tems — involves track­ing child, par­ent, fam­i­ly and pro­gram data simul­ta­ne­ous­ly to assess how one set of infor­ma­tion might influ­ence anoth­er. Link­ing this data togeth­er gives staff a fuller, more holis­tic view of how fam­i­lies are far­ing. For exam­ple: A case­work­er can see that a child miss­es preschool and their par­ent miss­es a coach­ing ses­sion. These two absences can prompt the case­work­er to look for a con­nec­tion and — if per­ti­nent — devel­op a plan to address the under­ly­ing challenges.

At Edu­ca­tion­al Alliance, this broad­er pic­ture was lack­ing: ​“All of our data were housed in var­i­ous spread­sheets, main­tained by dif­fer­ent depart­ments and also sit­ting in hard copy for­mat in file draw­ers,” says Sarah Koo, who serves as the organization’s data man­ag­er. Today, thanks to inte­grat­ed data col­lec­tion, every staff mem­ber at Edu­ca­tion­al Alliance has access to all fam­i­ly data across var­i­ous depart­ments. Equal­ly impor­tant: Data — and not just con­ver­sa­tions — are dri­ving staff deci­sions about resources and refer­rals for families.

Read more about advanc­ing two-gen­er­a­tion approaches:

• Inte­grat­ing Data to Sup­port Families
• Devel­op­ing an Infra­struc­ture for Two-Gen­er­a­tion Work