Illinois Early Childhood Asset Map

Data Sources on Early Childhood Services: State of Illinois

 

Illinois Department of Economic Security

http://lmi.ides.state.il.us/laus/lausmenu.htm

Up-to-date information on unemployment statistics for counties and cities are available on this website. Click on “Current Monthly Unemployment Rates” and then on “cities” (or if your city is unavailable, click on counties). Then find your city or county in the table that appears.

IFF’s Moving Towards a System

http://www.iff.org/content.cfm?contentid=41

In November 2003, the IFF released Moving Towards a System, a statewide early care and education needs assessment. This assessment –a snapshot in time of the early care and education services offered in communities throughout Illinois—provides data that allow stakeholders to assess the need in their communities, first in four separate areas of early care and education (Head Start, Pre-Kindergarten, state-subsidized child care and full-day child care serving families of all incomes) and then overall. Moving Towards a System also establishes benchmarks of service provision at the state, county, and municipality levels.

To determine overall need for early care and education, all Illinois counties and the sixty-six largest municipalities are first ranked in terms of need for each of the three government-funded programs and for full-day care serving families of all incomes. The rankings are based on two comparisons of supply and demand: service level and slot gap. Service level measures the percent of potential demand (the number of children needing service) that can be met by the existing slots. Slot gap measures the number of children who cannot be served by available slots. Potential demand is based on eligibility criteria, such as work status and income, depending on the program. Data on work status and income are taken from the 2000 U.S. Census. Estimates of available slots are based on data received from a variety of sources including the Illinois Network of Child Care Resource and Referral Agencies, Illinois Department of Human Services, Illinois State Board of Education and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Region V. The individual care and education rankings are then combined into an overall ranking.

Copies of the report and detailed, individual reports for each Illinois county and municipality assessed can be downloaded from the IFF web site (iff.org). For questions about the report or methodology used to conduct the assessment, email Heather Heaviland at hheaviland@iff.org.

Illinois Geographic Information System: Birth to Five Program and Community Information

http://map1.gismap.us/chicago/

This Web site developed by the Illinois Birth to Five Project is a useful source for information about teen pregnancy, child abuse & neglect, and birthweight statistics broken down by the county level (or by municipality in Cook County and community level in Chicago). It also provides information about existing birth-to-three programs throughout the state, including Early Head Start, Head Start, Prekindergarten, Healthy Families Illinois, Parents Too Soon, Prevention Initiative, Parental Training, and Safe From the Start programs.

From the Illinois GIS home page, select “ County Data,” “Municipality Data” (for municipalities in Cook County) or “Community Data” (for community areas in Chicago) in the upper right-hand corner of the page. This will bring up a table of statistics by area, including:

Information about existing birth to three programs can be accessed from the home page by first selecting the program type from the “Info Level” drop-down menu, then clicking on the I symbol above the map, and finally clicking on the symbol for the program that you see on the map. A pop-up box provides contact information for the program to get specifics about who they serve.

Note: This website may not be reachable on nights and weekends. If you have trouble accessing it, try again during normal business hours.

Illinois Project for Local Assessment of Needs (IPLAN)

http://app.idph.state.il.us

This Illinois Department of Public Health website provides community-level data on several health-related issues. The most recent available data varies by indicator, but is usually from no more than one or two years ago.

From the IPLAN home page, click on “IPLAN Data System” and then on “Community-Level Report.” Click on the county and then the community for which you want information. Then select each indicator you want to see one at a time (this will ensure that you get the most up-to-date information possible).

Relevant indicators available on the I-Plan site include:

Illinois School Report Cards

http://www.isbe.net (click on “Report Card” in left-hand column)
or http://webprod.isbe.net/ereportcard/publicsite/getSearchCriteria.aspx

The on-line school report cards for individual schools and school districts are useful sources of information about demographics, rates of school drop-out, truancy, mobility, and other potential risk factors. In addition, Illinois Standards Achievement Test (ISAT) scores for schools and districts may demonstrate that children in the community are at-risk for school failure.

The other useful characteristic of the school report cards is that they can provide information broken down to the elementary school catchment-area level. Programs that will serve children who live in just a few schools’ catchment areas can then pool together statistics from these schools’ report cards to create a very specific profile of the community they propose to serve.

From the School Report Card home page, search for the school or district you want (or if you don’t know the school or district names, enter the name of your town or city). Click on the name of the specific school or district you want in the list that comes up. Information available on the school and/or district report card includes: