Are we consistently identifying and serving homeless families?
In serving children and families experiencing homelessness, MAAC found that the information it collected was inconsistent, making it difficult to match housing services with the families that need it. Data on homeless families in ChildPlus and the Program Information Report have historically been collected in different sections of the information systems: ERSEA and Family & Community Engagement.
To address this problem, MAAC combined information from the different sections of its data systems into a single dashboard. This provided a more comprehensive picture of the children and families that it served who were homeless, which helps managers better track if the homeless families they serve are getting the resources they need. It also enabled MAAC to identify staff incorrectly answering the PIR questions in need of additional training.
Analysis
MAAC combined information from different ChildPlus reports into one dashboard in Tableau. The dashboard shows each family on one line, allowing for managers to see the responses to questions in disparate parts of the system all in one place.
Result
MAAC identified some homeless families that need housing services, but that were not marked correctly for the PIR questions. MAAC is taking two steps as a result: Ensuring that housing services are targeted at families that need them, and having managers better train staff members to improve data quality moving forward.
Additional details
Audience: Leadership, Management
Level of Analysis: Sub-group
Difficulty: Advanced
Content Area: ERSEA, Family and Community Engagement
Data Sources: ChildPlus, Excel, Tableau
Considerations/Caveats: Another option is to do a similar analysis with the data on other groups, such as families in foster care.
Technical Appendix
The data was pulled from ChildPlus and the dashboards were created using Tableau.
Questions about this use case? Email them to analytics@nhsa.org and we’ll get in touch with the author for you!