Broker a formal data-sharing agreement between child welfare and education agencies to identify and serve students in foster care¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 1 claim (1 for) · 1 study (1 qualitative), q2 · 0 of 1 report an effect size · 1 claim rests on one study

Description¶

The article recommends bridging the data divide between child welfare and education systems so adults can understand and support students' academic needs. WestEd and partners "brokered a first-ever data-sharing agreement between the California Department of Social Services ( CDSS ) and the California Department of Education ( CDE) as a critical step toward better understanding and serving the academic needs of youth in foster care." Without such data, students in foster care tend to become invisible in the education system.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Funding for the collaboration (the initiative was funded by the Stuart Foundation), intense data security, and a meticulous data-matching process across the two systems' large confidential datasets

Constraints¶

• In most states the two systems maintain separate data systems with no common identifiers, so the linkage must be built from scratch; the child welfare system is dynamic, with most children entering and exiting within a time frame shorter than the school year

Target Learners¶

• K-12 students in foster care

Target Learning Goals¶

• Targeted academic support, dropout prevention, and postsecondary preparation for students in foster care

Claims¶

• Inconsistent terminology across agencies and restrictive data-sharing rules are central barriers to identifying and serving highly mobile youth in both states [+W]

Related Strategies¶

• Use linked cross-system data to target programs such as dropout prevention and postsecondary preparation for students in foster care
• Link education and child welfare data systems to make the foster care achievement gap visible and trackable
• Develop data-sharing memoranda of understanding and shared evaluation across child- and family-serving agencies
• Implement a web of supports for students in foster care: one-stop resource centers, school-based liaisons, tiered services, and cross-system collaboration
• Implement a coherent student database linking education, child welfare, mental health, and judicial systems rather than further studying data sharing

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Shared Data Reveal the Invisible Achievement Gap of Students in Foster Care. (2014). WestEd R&D Alert, Vol. 15, No. 1. https://www.wested.org/bookstore