Next-Level Data Analysis for PFCE
Improving Head Start parent, family, and community engagement with data-informed decisions
By Victoria Jones, Senior Manager of Data
Over the past two years since we launched Parent Gauge, the team has heard a lot of really great stories about information programs have learned. If you’ve read our blog regularly, you’ve seen that we’ve written about some of these. So far, we’ve covered a program who learned about opportunities to improve their father engagement and we’ve also given guidance on how you can look at differences by native language to support children’s reading.
We wanted to make it even easier for programs to look systematically at their data by different subgroups, so we’ve officially launched a new custom report option!
The goal of our customized reports is to make it possible for users to more easily compare different subgroups. This way, instead of relying on staff to pick up on the sentiment that fathers in the home visiting program options are feeling less connected, programs can see this concretely through a custom report.
These custom reports allow programs to compare any two subgroups they’re interested in, as detailed or as broad as they’d like. The reports can simply compare Head Start to Early Head Start families, or dig into first-year EHS fathers compared to returning EHS fathers at the baseline time period.
We have a “menu” of recommended comparisons on the order form, but we have left this completely open for programs to identify the groups they are most interested in.
We’ve set up the reports so that programs get very easy to read graphs comparing the two subgroups on every question within the Parent Gauge tool. The cover page of the report includes important background information and guiding questions to help with interpretation.
These reports will allow programs to take their PFCE efforts to the next level in many regards, from drastically improving program practice to impressing monitors when they ask about how data is used to inform decision-making.
We’re excited to be launching these reports as programs begin their 2019–2020 interviews, and can’t wait to tell you more about what we learn throughout the year!
Want to learn more? See our order form here or send us an email at parentgauge@nhsa.org.
Victoria Jones is NHSA’s Senior Manager of Data. Victoria supports the Head Start field’s efforts to advance child and family outcomes by helping Head Start programs move towards a culture of continuous quality improvement. Her portfolio includes leading the Data Design Initiative, working on the Parent Gauge team, and contributing to other projects that directly support practitioners in the field.
