We’ve added a new legislative district overlay tool to maps on kidsdata.org. This tool allows you to see the data you care about, and then overlay legislative district boundaries, to help visualize what’s happening in your district.

How to Overlay Legislative District Boundaries:

1. Find data of your interest on any kidsdata indicator page. Next, select the map tab, and click the “Customize This Map” bar.

2. Next, select your district type (Assembly, State Senate, or U.S. Congressional districts) under “Show Legislative District Boundaries.”

3. Then, select the districts you’d like to see on the map. You can select as many districts as you want, or, click “Check All” to view all districts.

4. Don’t know your district? Hit the “What’s My District?” link. When you’re finished customizing, click the big orange “Submit” button to build your legislative data map.

5. Print your map and take it with you to advocacy or policy meetings.

Posted by Jordan Handcox

A recent analysis of Census data by the Brookings Institution has found a significant increase in the number of suburban households living in poverty.

According to a New York Times article about the analysis, poor populations in suburbs have grown by more than half since 2000. These areas have been hit hard by foreclosures and unemployment, the article notes, and can’t support residents who need the kinds of public services typically only available in urban areas.

On kidsdata.org, we offer poverty data for California school districts, cities and legislative districts, as well as data about students eligible for free/reduced price school meals, which is a proxy measure of poverty. These data encompass all regions in California – urban, suburban, and rural. Additionally, kidsdata.org includes several demographic measures of children in suburban areas, including:

• Child Population
• Households with and without Children
• Family Structure
• Children in the Care of Grandparents
• Foreign-Born Children

You also can find a broader summary of data available for your community by choosing a region here.

Posted by kidsdata.org

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If you’re reading this blog post, then you already know and like (or perhaps love) kidsdata.org.

Shouldn’t everyone?

After all, kidsdata.org offers free access to hundreds of measures of local child well-being from dozens of reputable data sources. You can find children’s data by age or racial/ethnic group, among other breakdowns, as well as for every city, county, school district, and legislative district in California. The site is an invaluable resource for grant writing, policy making, strategic planning, community assessments, and a host of other important work on behalf of children statewide.

While Kidsdata.org offers easy access to millions of data points we also offer several ways of delivering these data directly to you. Please help spread the word about kidsdata.org by encouraging your friends and colleagues to follow the three steps below. Together, we can ensure that anyone working on behalf of children in California has access to the data they need to improve children’s lives.

1. Sign up for a customized e-mail alert, and we’ll send you an e-mail any time data of interest to you are updated.

2. Follow us on Twitter, where we’re tweeting a daily fact about California kids, as well as timely news and information related to child health issues.

3. ‘Like’ us on Facebook, and share your insights about the data on kidsdata.org and the work you’re doing on behalf of children.

Posted by Felicity Simmons

This guest post was written by Sarah Marxer, kidsdata.org’s former data manager, and also is posted on KQED’s Perspectives page.

As an adoptive mother, I had a complicated reaction to this year’s federal report on the status of children, which has a special focus on adopted children. Its most striking finding is that while just 12 percent of all children have a physical or mental health problem, that figure is 29 percent for adopted children in general and 45 percent for children who, like my child, were in foster care before their adoption.

Despite my worry that sharing this information will stigmatize adopted kids, I want to make sure that we don’t miss this chance to learn something important about the ways that intensely stressful conditions early in life affect children. This report ought to raise alarm about the ways our tolerance for poverty harms the life chances of too many kids — most of whom are not adopted.

Researchers are learning that abuse, neglect and other forms of trauma during childhood — including poverty and exposure to community violence — affect many aspects of health throughout life. The findings about the compromised health of adopted children bear this out.

Today, the majority of domestically and internationally adopted kids, particularly those who have been in foster care, have endured things that hurt their chances for healthy development — including deprivation, abuse and disrupted relationships. Most adopted children thrive, but a substantial minority has significant emotional, physical or developmental problems. The ones most likely to struggle are those who experienced the greatest stresses in their early years.

With adequate resources, even children who’ve had a hard start in life can flourish. These insights should spur us to make it a priority that vulnerable children and their families — adoptive or not — get the help they need, and to reorder our priorities so that families don’t have to raise their kids in unsafe and chronically stressful conditions.

See data on kidsdata.org about children adopted from foster care.

Posted by kidsdata.org

Good news – we have embraced new mapping technology here at kidsdata.org. Our maps now are compatible with iPhones/iPads and other devices that are not flash-friendly. At your next meeting, you can pull up the facts you need from kidsdata on your iPad or other mobile device.

Our maps now are not only compatible with these devices, but also printer-friendly. These full color, compelling maps make interesting handouts or packet inserts (and they are free, like everything on kidsdata.org). Simply navigate to any map of interest and use your browser’s “Print” function to get a printout of the map. See below for a few examples of the different types of maps on kidsdata.org.

Visiting your legislator? Take along a map of child poverty in your district.	Print this map of Latino student enrollment in CA public schools.	Make a case for special education in your school district with customized handouts.

Posted by Jordan Handcox