{"id":31704,"date":"2020-01-09T19:09:41","date_gmt":"2020-01-09T19:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/caseyfamilyv2.wpengine.com\/nebraska-community-opportunity-map\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T21:53:25","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T21:53:25","slug":"nebraska-community-opportunity-map","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.casey.org\/es\/nebraska-community-opportunity-map\/","title":{"rendered":"How is Nebraska’s Community Opportunity Map increasing access to and use of timely, high-quality data at the local level?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A growing body of research<\/span><\/a> suggests that community conditions (such as resident turnover, high child-to-adult ratios, and concentrated poverty) have an impact on the rates of child abuse and neglect in communities, separate from the influence of individual and family characteristics. As such, local data can provide policymakers and stakeholders critical information about the strengths and needs of a given geographic area, which they can use to promote the health and well-being of children and families within their communities. Community-level data can inform strategic intervention and investment, service planning, stakeholder engagement, and ongoing monitoring and evaluation<\/b><\/span>.<\/p>\n

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To assist communities in easily accessing high-quality local data, Casey Family Programs launched the web-based, national Community Opportunity Map<\/span><\/a> in 2018. Using American Community Survey<\/span><\/a> data, this online tool allows users to explore indicators associated with child maltreatment in user-defined geographic areas (broken down to census tract or block group). The map also allows users to explore aspects of communities that are associated with safe children and strong families<\/b><\/span>. With the passage of the Family First Prevention Services Act<\/span><\/a>, states and tribes have an unprecedented opportunity to rethink how they serve children and families, making it more important than ever to have tools to understand the needs of local communities, determine the populations most at risk, and identify specific evidence-based practices to meet those needs and keep children safe with their families whenever possible.<\/p>\n

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The Nebraska Children and Families Foundation<\/span><\/a> (Nebraska Children) and the strong network of organizations it partners with have long understood the value of using data to evaluate community conditions. For more than a decade, the foundation has been examining community-level indicators to determine where to invest in programs and monitor the impact of those investments, and it has been disseminating community-level data to its partners statewide to help them better understand the assets and issues facing their own local communities.<\/p>\n

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In 2019, Nebraska Children sought to further enhance the use and availability of data by developing its own Community Opportunity Map<\/span><\/a>. To do this, the foundation facilitated a workgroup representing a range of organizations including the state university system, the nonprofit sector, and state government.1<\/sup><\/a> The map enhances the foundation\u2019s previous work by making data available on-demand, ultimately empowering people across the state to identify and address the needs in their own communities. The map serves as a critical resource for the Bring Up Nebraska<\/span><\/a> project, a statewide five-sector partnership that includes government, philanthropy, higher education, business, and the community. Bring Up Nebraska supports families and communities through the use of locally developed strategies using a protective factors framework<\/span><\/a>. In addition to data from the American Community Survey, the map includes state data from the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Division of Children and Family Services<\/span><\/a>; Nebraska DHHS, Division of Public Health<\/span><\/a>; Nebraska Foster Care Review Office<\/span><\/a>; Nebraska Department of Education<\/span><\/a>; Nebraska Crime Commission<\/span><\/a>; and the National Low Income Housing Coalition<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The map includes a variety of indicators to understand the well-being of children and families throughout the state.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \n \n \n <\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Children and family well-being indicators (from Nebraska\u2019s state data sets)<\/strong><\/p>\n