State and Community Strategic Planning
Key Collaborators
Early Childhood Iowa, Iowa Department of Health and Human Services, Iowa Department of Education, Iowa Head Start Agencies
Bringing together data to inform state and local community planning efforts can be daunting. The myriad of public-facing websites and state and federal data sources make it difficult to find relevant data and cumbersome to manipulate to make meaning and inform decisions. Data capable of informing strategic planning needs to be comprehensive enough to document statewide trends and understand the unique needs of different cities, counties, or local boards.
Our I2D2 team has been working collaboratively with state and local leaders to build capacity for more informed strategic planning by identifying priority data needs, curating datasets from disparate sources with relevant data capable of meeting those needs, and building interactive tools and materials to facilitate more effective and efficient use of data for decision-making.
Through the interactive IA Data Drive users have access to curated data that has been compiled, standardized, and aggregated into useful dashboards and reports. The interactive Iowa Child Care Connect provides near real time data about child care availability and supply/demand statewide and within user-defined geographies. Routine training and webinar services provided by I2D2 trained analysts support local area strategic planning efforts and work to build a data-efficient culture.
As we grow with our Iowa community, we continue to engage in critical dialogue to identify new use cases and opportunities to advance strategic planning using quality data.
Findings in Action
During the early years of Early Childhood Iowa’s Statewide Needs Assessment and Strategic Planning process in 2019, when I2D2 was first created, stakeholders across the system expressed the need for more local data to complement the statewide understanding of child and family needs. The value of data, visualized through maps and charts that contextualize local needs relative to statewide characteristics, was highlighted and translated into a statewide investment in understanding key child and family indicators that resulted in a comprehensive report Mapping Vulnerability in Iowa’s Early Childhood Systems.
In 2020, building on the momentum from the Mapping Vulnerability report the team utilized integrated data from Education, Health and Human Services, and Head Start to produce local estimates of preschool access that have subsequently been used to help drive efforts across the state to advance access and enrollment for all Iowa children before they enter public school kindergarten.
Following this strategic planning process, local leaders engaged in efforts to make more local information available to inform community planning and coordination. In partnership with Early Childhood Iowa, I2D2 centralized commonly used indicators from federal, state, and local datasets to create the first version of the IA Data Drive in 2021. This effort was supported by a pilot project with the Data Science for the Public Good summer program.
The iterative, collaborative development comprising this work and valued impact for local leadership was published in the International Journal of Population Data Science in 2025, showcasing the engaged partnership approach that is cornerstone for I2D2.
Current work includes partnering with Iowa HHS’s Division of Early Intervention and Support to cultivate additional data about the variety of services available for young children and their families across home visiting, prevention and early intervention, and early care and education. This includes new data collection efforts, the creation of interactive dashboards to add to the IA Data Drive about services access and enrollment, and engagement with partners across the system to develop more streamlined training and support for data-driven decision-making within local community planning efforts.
Data Briefs
Primary Investigators
Shannell Wagler
DOM Lead and Contract Director
Heather Rouse & Cassandra Dorius
ISU Analysis Lead
Community Advisory Group Members
Kelly Davydov, DHR/DOM Program Manager and Preschool Development Grant Director
Amanda Winslow, DOM ECI Systems Coordinator
Ryan Page, DHS Program Manager
Mary Breyfogle, DE Early Childhood Education Consultant
Rick Roghair, Iowa Association for the Education of Young Children
Tom Rendon, Iowa Head Start State Collaboration Office
Datasets
Vital Statistics Birth Records (IDPH)
Kindergarten and Preschool Enrollment (IDOE)
Childcare Subsidy Receipt (IDHS)
Home visiting and family support program enrollment (IDPH, DOM, DHR)
Head Start Enrollment (Head Start Grantees)
This work has been supported by federal funding from the Administration for Children and Families Preschool Development Grant B-5 to the Iowa Department of Management, and by seed grants from Iowa State University and the College of Human Sciences to faculty investigators Heather Rouse and Cassandra Dorius.
