Monday not only marked the public release of the 2013 National KIDS COUNT Data Book, it also included the unveiling of the new and improved KIDS COUNT Data Center by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. The Data Center is now easier to use, featuring an improved search tool, easier tools to make maps and charts, and better ways to customize and share materials on social media.

For those not familiar with the KIDS COUNT Data Center, it is the online data warehouse for all of the child and family well-being data that the Casey Foundation collects at the national and state-levels, and for all of the data collected by the KIDS COUNT member organizations within each state. The Data Center is where you can find the 100+ indicators collected by Kentucky Youth Advocates (KYA) on Kentucky counties and school districts.

I will be doing a webinar on July 16th that will walk Data Center users through all of the aspects of the new site. To register for this free, one-hour webinar go here. KYA will try to post a recording of the webinar on our website for those who cannot attend. Also, keep your eyes peeled for a how-to video the Casey Foundation will be posting soon to the Help page of the Data Center. This handout on the Data Center summarizes the main features and tools now available.

To get you started on the new site, here is a tip on the easiest way to access all of the county and school district level data KYA posts. Once you are on the Data Center home page, click on Kentucky in the map. The resulting page will have KYA’s data mixed in with the state-level data collected by the Casey Foundation. As the legend at the top of the page indicates, the indicators marked with a blue triangle are from the Casey Foundation, while those marked with an orange circle are from KYA. Go to the Locations toolbox on the left side of the page and click on By County to get a list of everything available on Kentucky’s 120 counties, organized within categories of well-being. If interested in accessing the available data on Kentucky’s 174 public school districts, simply click on By School District instead.