3-201 - Using Integrated Data Systems to Foster Collaboration and Innovation in Early Childhood Policy

Session Type: Exchange Symposium

Integrative Statement

Governments and their research partners are increasingly utilizing Integrated Data Systems (IDS) that link administrative data across domains to better understand complex social policy challenges. In particular, IDS have the potential to revolutionize our understanding of how best to take a collaborative and comprehensive approach to supporting young children.

Using IDS, researchers can look across an entire population, easily build longitudinal cohorts, and connect children with other children and adults in their household. As a result, IDS can help us answer essential questions about the early risk and protective factors that impact children outcomes, and can help us measure the impact of interventions across multiple domains, and even across generations.

This Exchange Symposium will feature four presenters currently engaged in applied research using IDS to support their state or local government’s early childhood policy priorities, moderated by a chair who will represent the national perspective on emerging IDS methods and best practices in early childhood.

While each presenter is using IDS to answer different early childhood policy questions, they share a common approach to data integration and inquiry, and are all members of a professional network that supports peer knowledge exchange. This Exchange Symposium will introduce a new audience of researchers to the opportunities and challenges involved with navigating the waters of IDS and building sustainable, cross-agency partnerships to better understand and serve children in their complex ecosystems.

Sub Unit

• Social Policy

Chair

• Katie Barghaus, University of Pennsylvania

Individual Presentations

• Connecting Disconnects in Early Childhood: Using IDS to Improve School Readiness for Iowa’s Young Children - Presenting Author: Heather Rouse, Iowa State University; Non-Presenting Author: Cassandra Dorius, Iowa State University

• Helping to Give California Children a Strong Start: Practical and Powerful Uses of Linked Administrative Data - Presenting Author: Regan Foust, University of Southern California Children’s Data Network; Non-Presenting Author: Jacquelyn McCroskey, University of Southern California

• Connecting across PK to K: Steps toward an Early Childhood IDS in Miami-Dade County - Presenting Author: Rebecca Bulotsky-Shearer, University of Miami

• Crossing the Great Divide: Integrating Early Childhood Learning Data with K-12 in Silicon Valley - Presenting Author: Marcy Lauck, Silicon Valley Regional Data Trust