The Colorado Lab is working with the Center for Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention to better understand and address the growing issue of perinatal substance use. The vision for this project is to routinely track incident rates of perinatal substance use in Colorado and inform state investments, programs, and policies aimed at strengthening families affected by substance use during a pregnancy.
A new study, Phase One Supplemental: Maternal & Infant Mortality in the First Year of Life, builds on last spring’s initial study focused on the risk of infant removal by child welfare shortly after a birth event due to a referral of substance exposure. The supplemental study establishes a baseline understanding of infant and maternal mortality outcomes for families in Colorado involved in child welfare and impacted by perinatal substance use.
This project will provide intelligence to the new Department of Early Childhood regarding early childhood program participation and guidance about creating a common identifier to track program participation in the future.
We’re pleased to welcome Denver Public Schools and the Colorado Judicial Branch as new partners to the Linked Information Network of Colorado (LINC). LINC was created through the Lab’s partnership with the Colorado Governor’s Office of Information Technology to help state and local government agencies harness data to inform solutions to critical social problems.
The goal of this project is to inform policies and practices aimed at preventing youth homelessness. It builds on a pilot project, “Characteristics of Former Foster Youth Receiving Homeless Services” by expanding innovative administrative data linkages to more systems that serve youth experiencing homelessness.
The Colorado Office of Respondent Parents’ Counsel (ORPC) provides legal advocacy services to indigent parents involved in child welfare proceedings. The project is evaluating the effectiveness of interdisciplinary teams. This project is also building the internal capacity of ORPC to routinely evaluate the effectiveness of representation models and use evaluation findings to inform strategic planning.
The Colorado Lab is dedicated to creating actionable research. A recent effort to create a snapshot of the Early Childhood Education (ECE) workforce, funded by the Piton Foundation and the Temple Hoyne Buell Foundation, was no exception. The Snapshot Report demonstrated that “high turnover in the field exacerbates the workforce shortage and hinders childcare quality,” and pointed to low pay as a contributing factor.
In the early days of the pandemic, many child care centers and other educational institutions temporarily shut down, while essential workers, particularly in the health care industry, desperately needed care for their own children. Countless early childhood educators lost their jobs in the closures, yet centers that remained open to care for the children of essential workers faced significant staff shortages. But how to fill these diverse and dispersed needs, especially during a public health crisis?
Preventing homelessness of youth formerly in foster care begins with understanding characteristics of those most at risk. This project connected child welfare to homeless services data in the Denver metro area to inform policies and practices aimed at ensuring youth aging out of foster care have stable housing.
Families affected by substance use during a pregnancy are at risk for infant and maternal mortality, significant health consequences, and threats to well-being of the family as a whole. This data linkage study improves our ability to monitor current trends by establishing a comprehensive set of definitions for prenatal substance use for affected mothers and infants in Colorado.