Increasing awareness of the need to develop and support safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments is most effective when the discussing includes factual information about the size and nature of the issue in your organization, neighborhood, or community. Enter the CDC’s Essentials for Childhood Goal #2: Use Data to Inform Action. 

Using the information that you have available not only helps to build the case for action, but also helps to identify needs and gaps, to direct resources where they are needed most, and to help document and monitor progress. Nationally – and in Kansas – there are number of resources for publicly available data that can be used to inform your work…we will highlight just a couple here.

 Kansas Communities that Care (KCTC)

An important tenet of Trauma-Informed Practice is to gather, listen to, and act on the voices of the people you are working hard to support. The KCTC survey in Kansas is one way communities gather information from students across the State who attend 6th, 8th, 10th, and 12th grades related to Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drug Use as well as other Risk and Protective Factors to highlight the important relationships that can be used to guide school/community prevention and intervention programs. Data is available by county, gambling region, or Juvenile Justice Authority region and reports can be customized to meet the needs of your organizations or community effort.

 Kansas Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System

In 2014 and 2015, the Kansas Department of Health & Environment added 8 of the original 10 questions from the landmark ACEs Study and studied how the results connect to chronic health issues. This information is available on the BRFSS website or at http://www.kansaspowerofthepositive.org/.

 Kansas Kids Count

The KIDS COUNT project in Kansas is a joint effort by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and Kansas Action for Children. KIDS COUNT provides an annual snapshot of how Kansas children are doing when compared to their peers on the national, state and county levels. For county level data, visit https://kac.org/data-and-research/kidscount/ .

 Whether you use readily available data or collect your own, understanding the prevalence and impact of trauma and toxic stress in your community, the behaviors and conditions that increase their likelihood, and the policies that create and recreate these conditions provides critical information to inform and support efforts to build more resilient communities. We would love to hear from you about the resources that you use to help inform your work – please leave a comment below!