Article co-authored in "Information, Communication & Society" on data justice for youth in care

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We wanted to announce an article that we co-authored with Dr. Naomi Nichols and Kody Crowell, Data justice for youth in and leaving care, that was recently published. We are thrilled  to see this piece published  as it is uses a methodology and approach of looking at data management systems and their characteristics and effects on a social system. We care a lot about this, and it is a big part of our approach to the sector. We think that this work could serve as a blueprint for other issues in the social sector and regions other than Ontario as well and are excited about the prospect of building (and validating) data maps.

Our work with Naomi and Kody involved mapping who holds what data about youth in care and youth leaving care in Ontario - including the data management systems, the institutions that control them, and even the ‘administrators’ of those systems. Part of doing this work allowed us to explore the recent transition Ontario made from each individual children’s aid society having an individual tracking and case management system to a centralized system, and to compare the intentions behind that change contrasted with the reality of the effects the change had on the functioning of that system (which was intended to allow for greater transparency amongst different agencies). 

Our work focused on mapping all of the data that is produced accounting for a person’s experience in the child welfare system - this allowed us to better understand the data and the nature of the data, as well as how decisions are made about using and supporting centralized systems for data collection.

Check out our paper linked here and let us know what you think. You can learn more about the context for this work from when we started on Powered by Data’s blog here.