Advancing States' Child Indicators Initiatives: Meeting Agendas

Track 2: Indicator Development:
Room 1B Welfare Reform
Moderator: Mairead Reidy, Chapin Hall
Resource Person: Larry Aber, School of Public Health, and National Center for Children in Poverty, Columbia University

Track 3: Data Issues:
Room 3A Data Sharing, Interagency Agreements and Confidentiality
Moderators/Resource People: Robert Goerge and Bong Joo Lee, Chapin Hall

Track 2: Indicator Development:
Room 1B Child Care
Moderator: Mairead Reidy, Chapin Hall
Resource Person: Ann Dryden Witte, Department of Economics, Florida International University

Track 3: Data Issues:
Room 3A Data Management and Linkage across Programs and Agencies
Moderators/Resource People: Robert Goerge and Bong Joo Lee, Chapin Hall

Track 2: Indicator Development:
Room 1B School Readiness, Health and Well Being, 1
Moderator: Harold Richman, Chapin Hall
Resource Person: Martha Zaslow, Child Trends

Track 3: Data Issues:
Room 3A Data Analysis
Moderator/Resource: Fred Wulczyn, Chapin Hall

Track 2: Indicator Development: School Readiness
Room 1B Health and Well Being 2 (continuation of Session 3)
Moderator: Harold Richman, Chapin Hall
Resource Person: Martha Zaslow, Child Trends

Track 3: Data Issues:
Room 1A Survey Use and Development
Moderator: Allen Harden, Chapin Hall
Resource Person: William McCready, Northern Illinois University, and Public Opinion Laboratory

International Perspective: Asher Ben-Arieh, associate director of the National Council for the Child in Israel, and editor of the State of the Child in Israel, directs an international project entitled "Monitoring and Measuring Child Well Being." Asher will describe the work of this project and offer us an international perspective on our own work.

Community-based organizations and other community actors are prime audiences for and potential users of the information represented by indicators. This session will briefly recap discussions from earlier meetings on making indicator data accessible and useful to communities, and then move on to the next level of development: How can we help communities move from indicators to outcomes? That is, how can indicator data be made a real force in community action? This session will take up the range of effective and appropriate roles for states in support of this goal, both in working with communities to understand the reality behind the data and in helping communities interpret data and employ it for their own purposes. We expect to inform discussion from a number of perspectives, including state government, community-based organizations, and the research community, and to cover a range of focuses for action (rural, urban, etc.)--all with the intention of further informing discussion and action at the community level. Communication: Community-based organizations and other community actors are prime audiences for and potential users of the information represented by indicators. This session will recap discussions from earlier meetings on making indicator data accessible and useful to communities, and then move on to the next level of development: How can communities move from indicators to outcomes? That is, how can indicator data be made a real force in community action? What is the range of activities communities can undertake (or have undertaken) to foster data-based discussion and action? And what is the range of effective and appropriate roles for states in support of this goal? Finally, In addition to addressing these questions, we expect to take some time to discuss the ability of communities' to complement indicators with additional other forms of information (e.g., from structured observations, focus groups, or surveys) , either obtained from others or generated by the communities, to further inform discussion and action at the community level.