Updated Data Tool for Child Welfare Changemakers
A revamped digital tool is making state-level child welfare data easier to sort and study. The goal is for child welfare advocates and decision-makers to then use this tool — and the data it delivers — to craft smarter policies and practices that more effectively support children, youth and families involved in foster care.
The tool, which was developed by Child Trends and funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, presents data from a variety of sources, including:
- Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System;
- National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System;
- National Youth in Transition Database; and
- U.S. Census.
The project itself marks “the beginning of a long collaboration to increase the reach and usability of child welfare data,” says Rachel Rosenberg, a senior research scientist at Child Trends.
The tool shares data that is packaged into five categories for every state, including:
- child maltreatment;
- foster care;
- kinship caregiving;
- permanence; and
- older youth in foster care.
For each category, the tool reports many data points disaggregated by age or by race and ethnicity.
Members of the general public can also put the tool to work and review its findings. This wasn’t always the case, according to Pamela Clarkson Freeman, a senior associate at the Casey Foundation who collaborated on the project. Freeman notes that the updated tool “gives the public access to data historically available only to researchers.”
