The Early Childhood DataCONNections project seeks to build the capacity of state government to collect, analyze and report relevant information on the needs of and services for young children, birth to age eight, and their families.  In doing so, DataCONNections strives to promote well-informed policy and programming decisions at the state and community levels.  DataCONNections frequently partners with state agency staff, researchers, community advocates and legislators to pursue this important work. 

Highlights of DataCONNections’ Efforts:

• An Early Childhood Research Agenda
• A Toolkit that provides state agencies with guidance on how to enhance their existing and future databases to accommodate sound data analysis and research
  
  
• A Data Factbook revealing how Connecticut’s young children are progressing toward school readiness and raising awareness of where change is needed to improve children’s chances for school and lifetime success
  
  
• Data Profiles on young children in each of Connecticut’s 169 cities and towns, including data on health, economic stability, and early care and education.
  
  
• Tools for identifying data sources, including:
  • An Early Childhood Data Resource Guide, which is a searchable online index of published or web-based data and information on young children
    
    
  • An Inventory of State Administrative Databases on young children (for more information, contact Sue Wilson at swilson@uchc.edu) 
• Early Care and Education Workforce Reports demonstrating how administrative data can be used to answer key policy questions and identifying additional data collection needs
  
  
• A detailed Data Plan for improving the quality of early care and education data and, simultaneously, enhancing the utility of that data for research and analysis (under development)
  
  
• New Data Collection on the early care and education workforce, which will provide information on the compensation, qualifications and turnover of teachers in early care and education programs  (under development)

Partnership nad Funding

Early Childhood DataCONNections is a public-private partnership of the State of Connecticut’s Department of Social Services(DSS) and CHDI, with a three-year grant from the Child Care Bureau of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, and matching funds from DSS, the Children’s Fund of Connecticut and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

For more information on this initiative, contact:

Judith Meyers
President & CEO