Data can help agencies chart safety and permanency outcomes for children in care, as well as educational attainment, employment, and other outcomes essential to the success of youth who have left care. 

Challenges
Agencies are drowning in data that they are mandated to collect. Often they lack the capacity to use the information to improve their practice and policy.

What's the solution? Agencies can partner with universities, research centers, associations, and nonprofits to expand their capacity to analyze and interpret information—often at little cost.

About the Roundtable
In October 2006, nearly 100 child welfare administrators, judges, policy advisers, data staffers, and other experts from 17 states and two tribes convened for two days in Seattle to explore ways to help jurisdictions develop the capacity to use data to drive outcomes and decision making.

The convening was co-sponsored by Casey Family Programs and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices.

Post-convening report
Published in February 2007, this report synthesizes meeting presentations from the convening, focusing on key areas in which data use and sharing have contributed to child welfare policy and performance. It summarizes creative programs and highlights successes achieved by specific jurisdictions.

Download the report (PDF: 1.5MB)