Service Utilization and Population Data Used to Geographically Target Services

The Children’s Trust of Miami-Dade County funds out-of-school time programs to reduce the number of children spending their out-of-school hours unsupervised and unchallenged. In 2005, the Trust began using service location, utilization and population data in determining where to locate these out-of-school programs in the region.

The Trust produced a map of all programs in the region, including their funded service providers as well as 21st Century Learning Centers and all schools from the school system. Child population density was layered onto this map, which revealed that areas to the west were growing where little to no capacity existed. Based on this analysis, they issued RFPs to provide programs in those underserved neighborhoods. In addition, the Children’s Trust began tracking utilization rates for all of their grantees to better understand where children are being served. This will supplement child population density data by showing where children are accessing programs, and will be used in evaluating future proposals.

This story was initially published in Stories: Using Information in Community Building and Local Policy in June 2007.

This story was written by staff at the Urban Institute, drawn from documents and interviews with Lori Hanson of The Children's Trust. The Children's Trust is the Miami partner in the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership, a learning network in 30 cities coordinated by the Urban Institute. All partners ensure communities have access to data and the skills to use information to advance equity and well-being across neighborhoods.