Develop an early childhood care and education integrated data system.
1.4.1 Create a governance structure for data integration, and develop guidelines, agreements, and procedures for information sharing that ensure ethical use, data integrity, privacy, and consent.
1.4.2 Establish a Kansas Early Childhood Integrated Data Systems (ECIDS) Core Group to coordinate the work involved with analyzing data across early childhood care and education programs.
1.4.3 Collect and analyze information (stories) received from Kansans with lived experiences (program participation, quality, outcomes, and community access) to inform decision-making at the state level.
1.4.4 Analyze data to generate an unduplicated count of children receiving early childhood care and education services.
1.4.5 Link appropriate early childhood data to other systems that serve children and families to analyze the long-term impact of early childhood investments.
The four lead agencies for early childhood care and education (KSDE, the Children’s Cabinet, KDHE, and DCF) executed a Data Trust Agreement in April 2021. The agreement establishes a data governance board that meets regularly to establish best practices for data sharing and oversee projects that help us better understand what is and isn’t working in service provision. One urgent data need is to identify an unduplicated count of children (ages birth to 5) receiving services, and an RFP has been released for help developing a technical plan to arrive at this count.
In an effort to inform decision-making at the state level through understanding Kansans lived experience, more than 2,600 Kansans shared a story through the Our Tomorrows story collection effort, followed by several sense-making sessions where participants analyzed and interpreted story data to generate local ideas for change. These ideas for change – known as action labs – are being tested all over Kansas with 47 grantees seeking to try things to improve the lived experiences of those in their communities.
