The Skillman Foundation has launched the Youth Development Resource Center – a new initiative that will help Skillman-funded organizations collect and use data as a key part of their youth development strategy.
Focused on ensuring that Detroit youth have access to the resources needed to thrive, the Skillman Foundation invests in neighborhoods and the community-based organizations that support children and families. However, the Skillman Foundation recognizes that simply investing in programs and services is not enough. In addition to traditional support, Skillman has committed to helping organizations build their capacity to collect and utilize data - an essential component of tracking outcomes and improving programs and services over time to best meet the needs of Detroit youth. Though many youth organizations regularly collect data, such as the age of participants and daily attendance, it is important to understand the different kinds of data that can be collected and how data can generate evidence about a program’s success. Indeed, data is more than just numbers of statistics – it is a powerful tool that can tell a story about the challenging conditions many youth, as well as the outcomes that can be achieved.
In an interview about the Youth Development Resource Center, Sara Plachta-Elliot – a fellow at the Skillman Foundation and a community-based researcher – explores how the Center will support Skillman’s youth development grantees. Specifically, she highlights how the Youth Development Resource Center will help organizations to generate data that is both practical and easily accessible to staff, especially youth workers who spend most of their time working directly with youth. Though a youth worker’s job many not involve collecting data, it is essential that youth workers use data to understand the challenges a youth is facing and track his/her progress to ensure that the right kinds of supports are in place to achieve success.
Moving forward, Youth Development Resource Center staff will engage in a series of listening sessions both in the Detroit and across the nation in search of data collection practices implemented by youth programs. In the coming year, the Youth Development Resource Program will share these learnings through capacity-building opportunities.
Do you know of a youth program that is doing a great job both collecting and using data? Reach out to the Youth Development Resource Center to let them know!
Data Resources:
Making a Difference In Your Neighborhood: A Handbook for Using Community Decision-Making to Improve the Lives of Children, Youth and Families.
BNCP Resource Center – Useable Data Tools and Templates
Showing posts with label Data. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Data. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Monday, November 25, 2013
Policy for Results in 1 Minute and 36 Seconds
Why Policy for Results?
The Center for the Study of Social Policy is proud to present an introductory video to the new Policy for Results site! CSSP believes policymaking should begin with the concrete results we want to achieve and that using reliable data leads to better decisions and ultimately to improved outcomes for children, families and communities.
CSSP has expanded, refreshed and restructured the PolicyforResults website, which provides data, holds hundreds of resources and highlights our public policy agenda. Policyforresults.org is a streamlined and modern tool that features strategies, funding resources, policy papers, briefs, blogs and more authored by CSSP and other experts. The goal is to use the site to advance the policy field's knowledge of equity and create more results-based resources that lead to action.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
Obsessed or Just Relentless?
Earlier this month, Washington Post education reporter Valerie Strauss posted a blog asking if the U.S. Department of Education is “obsessed with data” when it comes to their Promise Neighborhoods grantees.
The answer is, yeah, kind of.
But we’d argue the real obsession is with results.
Focusing on specific indicators means focusing on progress. What the government is doing is creating a new level of accountability. Of shared accountability that every partner in every Promise Neighborhood site is clear about.
Why are they doing this? Because to make sure that every child in a low-income neighborhood has the opportunity to get to and graduate from college means everyone involved has to understand what’s going on. Everyone has to be on the same page. And unless you’re tracking along the way – watching data on daily school attendance or critical milestones like reading well by the end of third grade – you risk waiting until kids fail to realize there’s a problem.
Another reason the focus on data and results is so important? It makes for much more efficient use of the resources at hand. Because as Strauss points out, there’s far less funding for Promise Neighborhoods than other education initiatives.
And so yes, it might take some time to get some of the details worked out on the best indicators organizations should be collecting and reporting. But it’s all part of a bigger picture.
The answer is, yeah, kind of.
But we’d argue the real obsession is with results.
Focusing on specific indicators means focusing on progress. What the government is doing is creating a new level of accountability. Of shared accountability that every partner in every Promise Neighborhood site is clear about.
Why are they doing this? Because to make sure that every child in a low-income neighborhood has the opportunity to get to and graduate from college means everyone involved has to understand what’s going on. Everyone has to be on the same page. And unless you’re tracking along the way – watching data on daily school attendance or critical milestones like reading well by the end of third grade – you risk waiting until kids fail to realize there’s a problem.
Another reason the focus on data and results is so important? It makes for much more efficient use of the resources at hand. Because as Strauss points out, there’s far less funding for Promise Neighborhoods than other education initiatives.
And so yes, it might take some time to get some of the details worked out on the best indicators organizations should be collecting and reporting. But it’s all part of a bigger picture.
Working with each of these communities, we know what’s at stake. We’re glad the Department of Education, neighborhood stakeholders, parents and everyone else who touches the lives of children in Promise Neighborhoods are relentless about results. It’s because they all understand what the end goal is.
And we’d argue that’s something worth being obsessed with!
Frank Farrow is the director of the Center for the Study of Social Policy, the training and technical assistance provider for the federal Promise Neighbhorhoods initiative.
And we’d argue that’s something worth being obsessed with!
Frank Farrow is the director of the Center for the Study of Social Policy, the training and technical assistance provider for the federal Promise Neighbhorhoods initiative.
Monday, October 21, 2013
City of Los Angeles Rolls Out New Neighborhood Data Profiles
Accessing and analyzing data is a critical component of building neighborhood capacity. Data helps communities validate community assets and challenges, identify effective solutions and track progress toward achieving results. At the neighborhood level, this often requires developing new systems and relationships to gather information. At this city level, this entails aggregating and communicating data that can allow for neighborhood-by-neighborhood comparisons and provide a larger regional perspective.
The Atlantic’s Cities Blog recently highlighted Los Angeles’ (LA) leadership role in connecting neighborhoods with data. As part of an effort to add a health and wellness dimension to the city’s General Plan, LA has launched a neighborhood data portal that allows users to map metrics related to health, as well as a diverse range of quality-of-life issues including education, transportation, crime and housing. The portal draws upon data from the city’s Health Atlas, which “highlights the geographic concentration of health disparities” in LA and illustrates the power of place to influence residents’ well-being.
Neighborhoods have important opportunities to generate data about what happens within their borders, including gathering information from those who live and work in the community. However, as LA’s data work showcases, cities can help neighborhoods access administrative data from city agencies and beyond, providing valuable context to local efforts and a potential source of longitudinal data capturing change over time.
The Atlantic’s Cities Blog recently highlighted Los Angeles’ (LA) leadership role in connecting neighborhoods with data. As part of an effort to add a health and wellness dimension to the city’s General Plan, LA has launched a neighborhood data portal that allows users to map metrics related to health, as well as a diverse range of quality-of-life issues including education, transportation, crime and housing. The portal draws upon data from the city’s Health Atlas, which “highlights the geographic concentration of health disparities” in LA and illustrates the power of place to influence residents’ well-being.
Neighborhoods have important opportunities to generate data about what happens within their borders, including gathering information from those who live and work in the community. However, as LA’s data work showcases, cities can help neighborhoods access administrative data from city agencies and beyond, providing valuable context to local efforts and a potential source of longitudinal data capturing change over time.
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Data in Action: Ready Youth
The Forum for Youth Investment has made “using better data and information” one of the building blocks of Ready by 21, a set of strategies focused on improving the odds that youth will be ready for college, work and life. As part of that effort, Ready Youth was launched to provide innovative ways for communities to use data to engage stakeholders and inform solutions.
Ready Youth uses data from the Gallup Student Poll, which surveys young people about three key indicators of student success: hope, engagement and well-being. The Forum and other Ready by 21 partners work with participating communities to analyze poll results in concert with other data on children and youth (e.g., information on health, education, employment and safety).
The combined data, capturing both student perceptions and community context, is used to mobilize a range of local stakeholders including students, parents, teachers, civic leaders and business people to engage in conversation about what strategies can increase young people’s success. New survey waves can then capture the efficacy of those strategies.
Indianola, Mississippi, one of the six communities participating in the Ready Youth pilot, provides a case study on the role data can play in informing effective solutions. For instance, despite a 2011 needs assessment in which 95 percent of parents said their children felt safe going to and from school, the Gallup Student Poll revealed that at least one-third of students believed that safety was a key concern. This finding prompted the high school to develop a safety strategy, which included “testing students on the code of conduct and training staff on safety protocol.”
The gap between parent and student perceptions illustrates the importance of gathering information from a variety of sources and using it to stimulate conversation about community assets and needs. Community dialogue can offer a rich opportunity to examine diverse stakeholders’ take on “the story behind the data,” including the root causes of challenges that emerge as priorities for collective action.
The example of Ready Youth shows that data is just one capacity that communities need to achieve better results for youth. For more information about collecting and analyzing data, engaging diverse stakeholders in partnerships to achieve results and identifying effective solutions check out the tools and templates on the Building Neighborhood Capacity Resource Center.
Ready Youth uses data from the Gallup Student Poll, which surveys young people about three key indicators of student success: hope, engagement and well-being. The Forum and other Ready by 21 partners work with participating communities to analyze poll results in concert with other data on children and youth (e.g., information on health, education, employment and safety).
The combined data, capturing both student perceptions and community context, is used to mobilize a range of local stakeholders including students, parents, teachers, civic leaders and business people to engage in conversation about what strategies can increase young people’s success. New survey waves can then capture the efficacy of those strategies.
Indianola, Mississippi, one of the six communities participating in the Ready Youth pilot, provides a case study on the role data can play in informing effective solutions. For instance, despite a 2011 needs assessment in which 95 percent of parents said their children felt safe going to and from school, the Gallup Student Poll revealed that at least one-third of students believed that safety was a key concern. This finding prompted the high school to develop a safety strategy, which included “testing students on the code of conduct and training staff on safety protocol.”
The gap between parent and student perceptions illustrates the importance of gathering information from a variety of sources and using it to stimulate conversation about community assets and needs. Community dialogue can offer a rich opportunity to examine diverse stakeholders’ take on “the story behind the data,” including the root causes of challenges that emerge as priorities for collective action.
The example of Ready Youth shows that data is just one capacity that communities need to achieve better results for youth. For more information about collecting and analyzing data, engaging diverse stakeholders in partnerships to achieve results and identifying effective solutions check out the tools and templates on the Building Neighborhood Capacity Resource Center.
Monday, September 23, 2013
The Power of Personal Voice: Storytelling, Strategy Selection and Policy Influence
In today’s policy environment, using local data to bolster arguments is a key way that advocates can influence change. Neighborhood residents and providers alike have access to micro-level data that can be used to assess the impact and effectiveness of public policies and document unmet needs. In this case, “micro-level” data relates not only to facts and figures generated by local information systems but also to resident engagement efforts that can help to uncover “the story behind the data.”
In the Building Neighborhood Capacity Program (BNCP), grantees are working to establish quantitative indicators and gather baseline data that will help them track progress toward their intended results. In concert with these efforts, grantees are also prompted to generate and examine more qualitative information, focusing on questions such as:
Stories can serve manifold purposes, and in addition to informing direct action in communities, they can also lift up the voices of individuals and stakeholder groups. With digital tools, these stories can have an impact beyond the borders of an immediate community to influence decision-makers at the local, state and national levels.
For instance, Half in Ten and the Coalition on Human Needs recently launched Our American Story: A Storyteller Action Network, where participants are invited to submit stories about the impact of public services and investments on their access to economic opportunity. In Recipes for Rising Neighborhoods, the United Neighborhood Centers of America and the Alliance for Children and Families include additional tools for collecting stories at the neighborhood level.
The interaction between resident engagement, data analysis, communications and policy influence illustrates the interdependence of the different capacities that are essential to neighborhood revitalization. For more information about capacity building, including stories about the BNCP neighborhoods, we invite you to visit the Building Neighborhood Capacity Resource Center.
In the Building Neighborhood Capacity Program (BNCP), grantees are working to establish quantitative indicators and gather baseline data that will help them track progress toward their intended results. In concert with these efforts, grantees are also prompted to generate and examine more qualitative information, focusing on questions such as:
- What do residents know about the root causes of the issues they want to address?
- Are certain streets or parts of the neighborhood more challenged than others?
- Are there policies or regulations that either assist or challenge change agents in their efforts?
Stories can serve manifold purposes, and in addition to informing direct action in communities, they can also lift up the voices of individuals and stakeholder groups. With digital tools, these stories can have an impact beyond the borders of an immediate community to influence decision-makers at the local, state and national levels.
For instance, Half in Ten and the Coalition on Human Needs recently launched Our American Story: A Storyteller Action Network, where participants are invited to submit stories about the impact of public services and investments on their access to economic opportunity. In Recipes for Rising Neighborhoods, the United Neighborhood Centers of America and the Alliance for Children and Families include additional tools for collecting stories at the neighborhood level.
The interaction between resident engagement, data analysis, communications and policy influence illustrates the interdependence of the different capacities that are essential to neighborhood revitalization. For more information about capacity building, including stories about the BNCP neighborhoods, we invite you to visit the Building Neighborhood Capacity Resource Center.
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