The “Map Community Resources” tool is the most recent addition to the Keeping Track Online (KTO) platform — a database housing hundreds of indicators of child well-being in New York City. With this tool, users can determine the presence or lack of resources across 59 NYC community districts.
How I Started
CCC uses data in its own advocacy and efforts empowering individuals, community service providers, and other advocates with data tools to explore and analyze community resources across multiple domains of support for child and family well-being, such as education, health, housing, and services specific for youth. The “Map Community Resources” tool has helped KTO visitors discover areas of the city where families and children do or do not have access to multiple services and types of support.
How I Built This
Map Community Resources tool was added to Keeping Track Online in February 2017, and it was born out of CCC’s first in-depth community assessment analysis in Brownsville, Brooklyn conducted in 2016. One of the project takeaways was that the data exclusively focused on risks presented an incomplete picture of the community and CCC decided to complement indicators of risk with data on community assets including public and privately-operated services, support programs, and infrastructure in NYC communities. We consulted several city agencies while building the tool and we continue to modify and improve the platform based on the new availability of data and needs of our partner organizations.
The tool is drawing from more than 20 New York City administrative data sources accessed through NYC Open Data or agencies’ websites (Department of City Planning, New York City Housing Authority, Human Resource Administration, Department of Homeless Services, Department of Youth and Community Development, Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Administration of Children’s Services, Department of Education), as well as New York State administrative data (Department of Health, Department of Agriculture and Markets) and federal sources. All assets are updated annually or biennially, depending on the data source.
Marija Drobnjak is a member of Citizens' Committee for Children (CCC) Research and Data team, responsible for maintaining and updating the Keeping Track Online tool and producing CCC’s biennial Keeping Track of New York City's Children data report. In addition to these, she conducts GIS and data analysis on a wide range of topics to inform CCC’s data-driven publications, community needs assessments, and other products.