|
|
Reports and Publications ::
2003 Report
Community Report Card
In November 2003, the Partnership produced the first Community Report Card on the Status of Children, Youth, and Families in response to an important challenge that the County and School Boards set for the Partnership when it was created: "to review and disseminate data, on a continual basis, on the status of children, youth, and families in Arlington County."
The information is organized around a series of 80 indicators that together provide a broad and objective statistical portrait of our youth and families. These indicators fall into four areas:
- Starting Healthy, Staying Healthy
- Stable and Secure Families
- Educational Readiness and Success
- A Safe, Supportive Community
The Partnership expects County leaders and community members to use the data to learn more about the quality of life of Arlington's children, teens, and families; to set priorities for promoting their well being; design programs or initiatives; establish performance measures; and track progress for improving those factors over time. The Report Card pulls together new and existing information from a variety of sources. The indicators are drawn from surveys of youth, birth certificates and vaccination records, and County and school databases. Some of the data has only been collected in the past two years, notably data on the level of assets reported by young people in Arlington. Some of the data has been available for years, but was not easily accessible.
Key Findings
The Report Card helps measure the success of our collective community efforts in making Arlington a supportive and secure place where children and families can thrive. Together, the statistics suggest that there is both much to celebrate in Arlington and reason for concern. Teen births, serious accidental injuries, and arrests of youth are all down, while immunizations, SOL passing rates, and the percent of minority students taking advanced classes are all up. On the other hand, risk behaviors are widespread, particularly among older youth. Further, at least a third of Arlington youth report lack of exercise, poverty, and depressive symptoms and a third of infants are born to families lacking some element that would give them the best start in life. In several areas, certain groups of young people are not doing as well as others. High school girls, for example, are much less likely to pass fitness tests, children from some neighborhoods are much less likely to be vaccinated, and students from certain ethnic groups are much more likely to get suspended. Finally, the vast majority of young people don't think that the community values them or sees them as individuals capable of making a positive contribution to life in this county.
Next Steps
The Report Card, either as a full report or in executive summary form, has been distributed to a wide range of community leaders, community-based organizations, county commissions and advisory groups, County and School staff, and the faith community, as well as to students who serve on the Schools' Student Advisory Board and the Arlington Teen Network. It is also available at this web site in pdf format.
In 2004, the Partnership will sponsor a series of community meetings to identify community priorities and set ambitious but attainable targets for key indicators in each of the four areas.
The Partnership plans to update the Report Card about every three years. Future versions will show progress toward any targets set for key indicators.
|
|
