The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Workshop to discuss students’ performance at state, local levels
MIDDLETOWN — The Middlesex Coalition for Children will be hosting a free data workshop at the deKoven House next week with representatives of CT Kids Count and the Connecticut Data Collaborative.
Guests include Samantha Hills, policy analyst for Connecticut Association for Human Services and Kids Count data coordinator; and Michelle Riordan-Nold, executive director of the Connecticut Data Collaborative.
Participants are invited Thursday from 9 to 10 a.m. to learn how to use online data tools for grant writing, program improvements and advocacy efforts, according to a news release.
CT Kids Count is one of 50 state-level Kids Count projects funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and Hartford Foundation for Public Giving and staffed by CT Association for Human Services, the release said. The Connecticut project is a public education and advocacy campaign that provides reliable, comprehensive, timely data and analysis on how well Connecticut’s children are doing at the state and local levels, according to the agency.
Hills will introduce participants to the online Kids Count Data Center, where people can find online data and resources specific to a Connecticut town or county, as well as statewide data. The tool is easy to use and is relevant to grant writing, advocacy and programming improvement, the release said.
Riordan-Nold will teach participants how to use the The Connecticut Data Collaborative online data tools.
The Data Collaborative is a public-private partnership empowering an ecosystem of data users by democratizing access to public data and building data literacy, the release said. It provides accessible public data that the organization processes and displays in a user-friendly format on its online data portal, ctdata.org.
The CTData Academy’s goal is to increase data literacy, build data capacity and enable the government and organizations across the state to use data effectively in evaluation and advocacy that impacts social lives.
Evaluating data quality and understanding data limitations are key challenges facing organizations that use data to address community issues. Participants are building a network of critical data users in Connecticut who employ quality data and strong analytics to improve their communities, the release said.