About This Toolkit
With the funding and support of the Hilton Foundation, the Legal Center for Foster Care and Education, a project of the ABA Center on Children and the Law, created this Data Toolkit to encourage child welfare and education agencies to work together to improve the quality of their information and data sharing practices.
In This Toolkit
Why Sharing Foster Care and Education Data is Important
Data shows us students experiencing foster care face frequent school changes, delayed enrollment when school changes occur, higher rates of school suspensions and expulsions, lower achievement in reading and math, higher levels of grade retention, and lower high school and college graduation rates. Child welfare agencies and education agencies can securely share limited, critical information about students experiencing foster care to facilitate better cross-agency collaboration and support improved educational outcomes.
Legal Framework for Data and Information Sharing
State and local governments have a critical role to play in ensuring that high-quality data linkages are being implemented. Furthermore, there have been several significant changes to federal policy that support data collection and information sharing between child welfare and education agencies.
State & Regional Resources
Several state and local governments across the nation have enacted or implemented laws and policies that support more comprehensive or more frequent data and information sharing between agencies. Jurisdictions seeking to improve their data practices can look to states and local agencies that have established sound processes for insight into successfully sharing information across systems
Tools and Resources
In this section, you will find several helpful tools and resources to support improved data and information sharing practices, including a comprehensive guide on collecting, sharing, and reporting data. You will also find interactive tools and assessments to evaluate your jurisdiction’s data sharing processes.