Child Care Aware® of America and NORC at the University of Chicago to Build Child Care Data Center
New website will address access to reliable, standardized data about child care in the United States
WASHINGTON, DC — Child Care Aware® of America (CCAoA) will partner with NORC at the University of Chicago to build a strong, standardized data repository about child care in the U.S. The goal of this effort is to ensure that child care systems, policies and funding decisions are based on the most reliable data available. The Child Care Data Center (CCDC) project seeks to answer fundamental questions about the availability of, and the demand for, child care. The CCDC will be an interactive website and data center that:
- Stores meaningful child care data across the nation;
- Allows users to access customized data visualizations to tell the story of child care in their state or local community, and;
- Offers actionable tactics to advocate for change.
Last year, CCAoA engaged a group of state and national partners to inform the development of the CCDC prototype. Over the next 12 months, CCAoA will engage a National Advisory Panel to support the build out of the CCDC. This collaborative effort will fill a critical gap within the child care field.
“CCAoA is thrilled to partner with NORC at the University of Chicago with this ongoing project,” said Ami V. Gadhi, JD, Chief of Policy, Research and Programs at CCAoA. “NORC has decades of experience building, operating and supporting secure data centers for public and private sector clients, and we are confident that together, we can support the child care workforce and families with this important data center.”
“This collaborative partnership brings together CCAoA’s state-level child care policy and advocacy expertise with NORC’s early childhood research, data and survey expertise truly capitalizing on the complementary strengths of both organizations. CCAoA has an established history of working closely with state stakeholders and an in-depth understanding of states’ needs for data and the necessary resources that allow them to advocate for child care policies,” said Michael López, Vice President of Education and Child Development at NORC. “NORC is excited to collaborate with CCAoA on this next phase of the development of the CCDC and to promote the shared mission of using high-quality data to inform decision-making around early care and education!”
NORC is a leader in conducting large national surveys, as well as more targeted state and local studies, harvesting reliable, actionable early childhood data, particularly data on early care and education. NORC’s work in the area of early care and education (ECE) is strong and continues to grow, particularly as educators and policymakers strive to better understand the many different factors that affect a child’s early learning and well-being.
The Child Care Data Center is a project supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
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About Child Care Aware® of America
Child Care Aware® of America is our nation’s leading voice for child care. CCAoA works with state and local Child Care Resource and Referral agencies (CCR&Rs) and other community partners to ensure that all families have access to quality, affordable child care. CCAoA leads projects that increase the quality and availability of child care, offers comprehensive training to child care professionals, undertakes research, and advocates for child care policies that improve the lives of children and families. To learn more, visit usa.childcareaware.org. Follow CCAoA on Twitter @USAChildCare and on Facebook at facebook.com/usachildcare.
About NORC at the University of Chicago
NORC at the University of Chicago is an objective, non-partisan research institution that delivers reliable data and rigorous analysis to guide critical programmatic, business and policy decisions. Since 1941, NORC has conducted groundbreaking studies, created and applied innovative methods and tools and advanced principles of scientific integrity and collaboration. Today, government, corporate and nonprofit clients around the world partner with NORC to transform increasingly complex information into useful knowledge.
www.norc.org
