Using Data to Tell a Story: Part 1

Using Data to Tell a Story: Part 1

Dr. Guylaine Richard: Good morning, everyone, or good afternoon for most of us, right? It is such a pleasure to be back with you again. And I know you have, yesterday, enjoyed your pie. And today, you started the session by engaging with our facilitators on deepening practice for getting family well-being as an outcome. Today, we're going to be going on using data, that big word, to tell a story. My name is Guylaine Richard, and I am the Director of Training and Technical Assistance at the National Center on Parent, Family, Community Engagement. And it is my pleasure to introduce to you someone, who when all of us say we dislike data, she sees data as ice cream. Dr. Brown, take it away.

Dr. Eurnestine Brown: Thank you, Dr. Richard. It is such a pleasure to be here this morning. And you're so right. I love data. That's one way that we can really tell the stories of our families. And so, I also have the honor to be a Senior Training and Technical Assistance Specialist at Brazelton Touchpoints Center. And I'm so happy to be here today to talk to you about data and how data can tell the stories of your families. Take it away, Dr. G.

Dr. Richard: All right. So welcome again, everyone. We are going to be dumping on data. We're going to jump on it. We're going to adopt it. We're going to learn it. And we're going to be teaching it. So, it is my utmost really pleasure to go ahead and just do very quickly ... We're not going to stay there. You are pros at it right now. You have been so familiar with the session console. So, my class today is just to give you a quick tour again. Remember on your console, you have four pods, four big pods, and one of them is the top one where you're going to see actually the media. This is your media player. This is where you have the opportunity to see me, to see Dr. Brown as your presenters, but also if we were playing any kind of video, you would have seen us there. The second widget that we would love, we know you're familiar with and that we want you to get engaged with us today on that, is the Q&A widget. And the fourth ...

So, as you can see, it's at the bottom of your ... It's on the second, platform here. And we're going to look at the third one which is on top ... It's in the middle, actually, pardon me. It's in the middle. And this is where your slides are. Guess what? Those slides are going to be ... This is where you can really see what we are presenting to you, but I want you to just relax, make you get a little bit relaxed because I know the question. The next question is: Will we get the PowerPoint? This is where you're going to sit upright. Yes, you will get a copy of the PowerPoint after we do, after we finish with the session. The second one is like ... On the top corner, you're going to see what we have called like your Resource widget. This is where you're going to find all the things that you need, all the resources. And this is actually where we have as a handout some of the slides for you, so this is where you can find. Also, one thing I wanted to really bring your attention to is your Reflect and Plan form. This is where you can download it. It is going to be very important for you to pay attention to that one too. And last but not least, on this one, I'm going to show you where you can find our bio. If you wanted to find a little pic of Dr. Brown and who we are, please go ahead and take a peek at the bio, but we're not done. We actually also have, again, the opportunity to tell you how you could actually minimize or enlarge your own platform, your own console. So what you do, as you can see there is a little arrow, double arrow here that you can stretch, you can stretch it, make it larger, or you can shrink it so it could disappear. Even if you were to get that to disappear, do not worry. There is at the bottom of your console, you see there is like where all your widgets are together, this is where you can click on them and get them to come back to you alive. So, don't worry if you were to make a mistake and just enlarge too much. So, what I wanted for you to pay attention to also is now this is where you can minimize or maximize your tables. And I call them tables. I'm sorry. I know I'm making a mistake, but, hey, this is what for me ... This is for your, really, your engagement tools. So, what I wanted to make sure that I bring out to you is actually something that you're going to need. It is like your knowledge check. Your knowledge check is where you would go at the end. I will bring them back again to you. This is where you could go ahead and take a few test questions that we have put to you. You will ... Once you finish taking those tests, that will tell you that you have met the requirement to get your certificate. And guess what? Once you're done, you're going to see that that certificate widget is going to come ... This is where you can actually print your certificate. You can print it, but we really strongly encourage you to download it and to keep it because you may need it after, so just as you are printing your certificate, you can really remember before you do that to download so you can have it for further use. And last but not least of the widget is going to be your Help widget. This is where if you have any tech issues, anything that our technology team will be able to help you. So, I hope like by now, I know you're pros. So, I probably took too long, and you'd say, "Come on, G, go with the program." And I'm going right now with the program by actually passing the torch to Dr. Brown, who's going to take us to some reflection. Dr. Brown.

Dr. Brown: Excellent. Excellent. Thank you, Dr. G. That was so wonderful. Again, we're just so happy to be here, and we're going to talk a little bit about some reflections concerning data. So, what does a family's story tell you? And, of course, this is going to go back to thinking about data, and we're going to ask you to use the question and answer widget to just put in some responses. So, what does a family's story tell you? And then also if you would ponder, why is gathering those stories so important to your program? And as Dr. G said, we're going to be really diving into data and talking about the family's story, so how we can use data to tell the family's story. Some of the learning objectives for today that we hope that you will engage with us is to discuss and define data. So, what is data? You know, I love data. So, we're going to be talking about what exactly is data? And what are some principles, so we want to make sure that our data is reliable. So, we're going to talk a little bit about that. We're going to talk a little bit about steps that we can use to tie a family's story to program planning. We're going to look at some of the critical components of using data to tell a family story, also for program planning, and then that continues program ... So, how can we use data to feedback into programming.

And we'll spend some time again talking about our wonderful four data activities. So, some of you may be familiar with those, and even if you're not, we're going to walk you through and give you a tool, so the four data activities to help you really dive in deeper to tell the stories of your families. Hopefully, you've seen this quite a bit yesterday and throughout your trainings. So this, of course, is our PFCE framework. It is our anchor, it is our roadmap, it is our place for anchoring ourselves when we think about change. So, it is our roadmap, and one way that we kind of think about a roadmap is what we call, "If this ... then that." So, looking at program foundations which we know our quality systems, adding to effective services ... If this ... And which will lead to, of course, achieved outcomes. So, when we say, "If This ... Then That," of course, it's anchored in our framework, but if we have quality services ... quality systems, excuse me ... effective services that's going to lead to achieved outcome. Now, we do know that we are now in a data-driven culture, so it's not just about compliance, but it really is about achieved outcomes. What are some of the key messages that Dr. G and I hope that you're able to walk away with from our training today is the first is that the stories that the families share are filled with essential data, critical data, but of course, that's going to go to listening and really hearing what families are saying. There are multiple sources that can assist you in knowing about your families, so multiple sources of program data that will help you make critical decisions. Just like family engagement, the data culture really is everyone's business.

Everyone has a piece of that data pie. Collecting information may seem easy, but we know that there's going to be some challenges along the way because what you put in is what you're going to get out. So, we wanted to make sure what we put in is quality information. And then, we want to really focus on the what and why of data. So, why have you collected this information? What information is it giving you? So, I'm going to turn it back over to Dr. G, and she's going to help us explore some key questions. Dr. G.

Dr. Richard: Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Brown. I actually was very, very taken by what our friends have been sharing with us on the chat on the Q&A, in the Q&A here, and they have some wonderful ideas telling us that a family story maybe like maybe what they are looking for to get out of their Head Start program, and also, like telling us that those stories give us strength that the families have and perhaps their wishes and dreams. So, I am tempted to go and look at some questions that I call them important. Why are they important? Because actually, they are giving us a pathway to look at when we are meeting the families and we want to answer this question, the what. The first what that we want, actually whenever we are working with families, whenever as program we're working, as and we're finding what our hope and dreams are for the families is what do we want?

The first question is, what do we want? So, if you know what you want, then you are going to be able to answer the question, the next one, which is how you doing? When I say, "What do you want?" You say, "Oh, I want, as a family, I may say I want a house." As a program, I would say that I want all families to be having mental health services. And when we answer the question to you, I'm going to say, "How are you doing?" And the family is going to say, "I'm doing great." And the program says, "Oh, we're doing fine." The next question is where the data helps you start thinking about data because when you tell me you're fine, when they tell me everything is great, and everything ... So, the next question we want to ask you then, "How do you know? How do you know you're fine? How do you know you're doing great? How do you know?" So, this is a question that is really important for us to ask every time you want to really solidify the thing that you're saying because people really can define fine or great in different ways, so how do you know? And the next question that program usually ask themselves and usually when we work with families, as family service managers working with our staff, we want to know have we made a difference. Have we made a difference in the life of those families? As a program, have we made the difference in the life of many or a group of families or all families? And we want to say, the answer is easy for here. You can say, "Have you made a difference?" You're going to say yes, or you're going to say no. We don't want the yes or no question because the next question is going to help you solidify what you said with data, how do you know? So, if you tell me, "You've made a difference," I'm going to say, "How do you know we made a difference?" So, in order for you to be able to tell us what you did, you're going to be giving us information about the thing that you want. So, Dr. Brown, I hope it's OK with you that I'm going and stretching the word data for the one of the some of those that are

... And calling it like the information that you get. So, I wanted to take this opportunity then to go ahead and get with my friends here and show them something that when, as a program, you really want as you set your goal to support services for families, you get an opportunity to choose the goal and to really monitor, to really measure the progress that you make to track them over five years. And for those of us, I know like a lot of us know that now we are in a five- year project cycle, project period. We're not doing the three-year again, like you get monitored after five years. So, what you do, you decide what you want.

Remember the first question: "What do I want? What do we want?" And, you know, you say, "How you're doing?" The "how you're doing" is really the tracking of the progress. And now you're going to say, "How do you know?" So, the first time this, actually, this table is something that have been used, we have used it for and that was actually done by the office of Head Start to train like the regional specialist on how to get the program to know that it was fundable. So, I'm not going to give you the full story, but what I want to make sure that you understand is the first thing that you do then is asking the question, "What do we want to accomplish?" So, that's what is going to define you, the goal. And usually when you get there, the goals may be something big, and I'm going to show you ... We're going to go over that, but I want to make sure that you understand that when you have something big, you can cut it and it becomes objective, which really gives you an opportunity to look at what, as a program, do you plan to do to meet the goals that you've got to do. So you may have to cut your goal in smaller goals to really make sure that you can show the steps that you're taking for each of those objectives.

And the last one, and the other one that you do is the expected outcome because you might think, "This is what I want. This is what I'm going to do, and this is what I'm expecting that would happen." So, that's why we call it an expect outcome, but I want you to pay attention because Dr. Brown is going to trick you in a minute and I don't want her to trick you, so I'm going to give you the answer to the test in a minute. You see, pay attention to the colors because the first part that you see is red. This is really the part where she's going to probably talk to you about ... I don't know what she's going to do, but I don't want her to trick you. I want to make sure that you ... Remember she loves data. We may not, all of us. But this is the first part is the prepare phase that you're going through, but after that, in order for you as you know, you got a goal and you're going to do it, you collect data, you collect things, you collect a bunch of stuff, you collect, so that's the thing. What does ... Here again, there is a question, "What will let the program know how they are doing," because if you're doing things, you're going to have to show me proof. If data is not there, it may or may not happen, so you're going to have to have proof. A lot of us are going to proof, proof, proof ... We're going to have ...

That's why you collect so many things. And after that, you understand that the next step would be then to make sense out of what you are doing, you have gathered, so that's where you're

going to be comparing what you had expected to find to what you actually found. So, that's what we call the actual outcome.

And one of the thing, once you get, once you see what you have, you analyze it. Analyze it means like put it together and Dr. Brown is going to probably give us ... And I got a chance to tell you, but we're going to put together, but what I want you to know in that phase when you finish collecting because you know what you want and you finish collecting, you're going to have to put it in a way where it can mean something because your next step is going to be then to use it, make decision with it, share it with others. And this is when you're going to ask yourself the question, at that time, you're going to say, "Oh, I expected outcome. We're not in line with my actual outcome and maybe need to make adjustments." So, this is the concept of continuous learning and program improvement. At that time, the question that you're asking yourself is what needs to happen next? Am I satisfied with what I'm getting? OK? So, I'm sure that we'll get a chance to do that, to do like in a more thinking about this as we go on feeling the date activities, but I would love to take one minute. We're going to actually ... I'm not going to give you a lot of time. Guess what? I'm going straight because I know Dr. Brown is waiting for that question, but I'm going to ask it - I'm going to ask you, and I know we are fine. And whatever we say is good because guess what? We're going to ... I'm going to unveil in a few ... After we talk it, we write it, we're going to unveil this. So, I want you to define data for me.

What is data for you? And let's go to the Q&A widget, and let's write it myself, when I see data, the word data, I go to immediately the word twice. Dr. Brown, look at them. We are having a ...

Dr. Brown: Oh, wow.

Dr. Richard: I didn't see anybody putting Like, Dr. Brown, I saw them putting ... I saw them putting hello. I saw them putting ...

Dr. Brown: I sure have some friends out there. I'm sure I have some friends out there who love data. Come on, we need you to speak up.

Dr. Richard: They are speaking up because you know what, I see some big words like measure. I see other words really like ... Oh, I see compliance. Oh, this is what we have actually, you see, this is what they have been ... And look at you guys. Look at the word cloud that you have been having and seeing. Data means problem-solving. And the word that I love the most is improved- practice and decision-making. So, as we look at data, we see decision-making. So, Dr. Brown, I'm going to give you the opportunity to walk us through those four data activities because this is important for us to know according to those questions that we posed earlier.

Dr. Brown: Awesome. So, the four data activities are really a tool for you to understand how you can measure progress. So, we're diving in deep to really tell the family stories. So, you can use these four data activities to support family progress towards positive family outcomes, as Dr. G said. And those four data activities that she walked us through pretty quickly but kind of gave us the meat is to prepare. So, what questions are you going to answer? Or what are the main questions that you have identified for your program? And think of the next step would be collect. So how you going to collect that data? And we know in Head Start and Early Head Start, we have a lot of data. We collect everything, but we want to be intentional. So, when we talk about collecting, we want to be intentional. We want to aggregate and analyze, so we're going to do our analysis on the data that we have. We're going to look for trends. We're going to look to see, OK, well, what is being revealed about our families? And then we're going to use and share that information with our families, with our Policy Council, with our key stakeholders. So, these are the four data activities, and you can see it's circular; it is not a linear process. You can stop and go. So, you may be collecting data and realize, "Oh, my goodness, this was not really answering the question that we wanted it to ... We are not collecting the data that we really need to collect." Because you went back to say, "What are the questions that we're asking?" So, what questions do we need to identify? When we talk about the four data activities, a key component is looking at relationships. So, maybe use the Q&A widget to put down some responses. So, in your work with data, why do you think relationship building is important? So, Dr. G, we'll give them a minute, and then maybe you might even have some ideas about why do you think it's important when we talk about data, relationship building is so critical. So, we'll give you a second to write down some ideas.

Dr. Richard: Yes. Dr. Brown, I love this question because you know what, that brings us again to the relationship and the fact that when we hear data, we are moving away. When we talk about relationship, we move closer, so I like that. Thank you very much for putting this because for me, when I'm talking about relationship and data, I see the word trust again. As you know, that was my word. I need to trust you to share that information with you, right? OK, and I see my friends are now like I see couple people with me saying that trust is important in the relationship and making sure that the person tells you the thing ... Look at them, they are really giving us some good answers here and accuracy. They're talking about that data accuracy because of the relationship. Oh, I like that. This is good.

Dr. Brown: Yes. Yes. So, trust and accuracy because you want to make sure that the data that you are gathering is authentic, and it's really telling the family's story because that's what we're all about is telling the family's story through authentic, meaningful data. And one way that we can do that, of course, is looking at these four data activities. And the first, again, is prepare.

Think about what does it mean to prepare and then why is it so important to prepare. So, what questions have you identified that need to be answered? So, thinking about that before you start, so this is the planning and preparing stage. And you guys know that if you don't know where you're going, it's going to be hard for you to get there. So, prepare and planning is a key component. Where do you want to go? So, you have to prepare and think about it. Collect, again ...

Dr. Richard: Dr. Brown. Dr. Brown. I'm sorry. Are you telling me that if I don't know where I'm going, I may end up somewhere that I didn't want to end up with at the first place? OK.

Dr. Brown: You have that right. Exactly. Exactly. And with the PFCE framework, we know we always keep the end in mind, so we know where we're going, but we have to be really clear that that's where we're going because we don't want to end up on a garden path. So, awesome. The next data activity that we can discuss would be collect. And again, we mentioned in the key messages, the what and the why. So critical. So, what do we want to collect and why? We just don't want to keep collecting new information. That's not useful, and I'm going turn it back over to Dr. G.

Dr. Richard: Thank you, Dr. Brown. Thank You. And I think one other thing that Dr. Brown said, OK, keep on collecting, you need to plan, you need to know what you want, you need to collect it, and you need to be like able to make sure that you look at what you're collecting, you look at what you wanted. So, Dr. Brown, I'm going to a very deep, to a difference that a lot of us have problem with. When you tell us measure, we go, we go quantitative data. Quantitative, we know has the word quantity in it, right? Am I right? OK, stop me if I'm doing something wrong because you know me. Because I know what I'm talking about, but I want you to correct me.

Quantitative means quantity. So, a lot of time when we're thinking about data, the first thing that comes is: "Can I count it in quantity?" So yes, quantity, I can see one plus one equals two. So, this is yes, this is a kind of data, but we also ... The thing that we get in most of those stories that the families share with us are the qualitative data, and I want you to extrapolate the word quality because I look at this as quality myself because there is so much information that when those families share the story with you, and they tell you something, you probably are meeting to see that they have given you all you needed to answer the question, "What ... Where we going? What kind of outcome are we going to go after?" So, quantitative data, yes, but qualitative data is also important. Dr. Brown, is there anything that you would add on this?

Dr. Brown: Oh, thank you, Dr. G. Yes. So, when we talk about qualitative data, remember, we're going to be able to get the answers to those questions by having open-ended questions, and we can also keep it in mind just this analogy ... So, if you think about a caterpillar to a butterfly, so that will take you from quantitative to qualitative, that butterfly's going to fly. It's a huge change in structure. So, thank you, Dr. G. Yes, quantitative is about quantity and qualitative is quality. It is open-ended, and it's going to allow you to just fly like that butterfly and answer the questions that your program is asking.

Dr. Richard: Thank you. Thank you. So, another some key concepts that we want to really go about is the validity, and the reliability, and the confidentiality about data because when we are talking about validity, the question that we want to answer, "Are you measuring what you think you are measuring?" So, this is very important. Otherwise, what you are giving maybe like not really making sense, not really ... You're not really measuring what you wanted, what you think you're measuring. Reliability, are you measuring the same thing each time? Reliable ... In order for you to be leaning on data, they need to be reliable, which means that, hey, if I'm going to count, I'm going to find the same thing. If I'm going to think about how I'm leaning on qualitative data, I'm going to find the same thing each time that I'm bringing out. But the other piece is the confidentiality, "Are you keeping all information safe and secure?" And I think for me, the confidentiality means that for me a duty to act but need to know when you have duty to act because a lot of us are coming with confidentiality and saying, "I cannot share with other people." The Family Service Worker would say, "I cannot share this information to the teacher" because the teacher, the parent said it's confidential. But one thing ... Before you can share information, you need to ask the families will they want to share this information. That is important for you, the point of confidentiality. But one thing we don't want as family managers to let happen is for the staff to say, "We cannot share with other people because this is confidential, with the ... Nobody needs to know in the program." Remember, family engagement is everybody's business. So, if your family has something that they are struggling with or they need your help or our help with, they mean you may have it within your program and do that. So, I hope that ...

Dr. Brown: Dr. G, can I add just a little piece here? And especially in these uncertain times, Dr. G and I really wanted to home in on confidentiality. So, it might be a place for you to spend some time with families discussing. If you're using Zoom or if you're using [Inaudible] or other kind of virtual platforms, so that families feel assured that you are keeping their information confidential. It just becomes really important right now in these uncertain times and that ...

Virtual is wonderful, but we want to make sure that families, again when we talk about data, feel trusting, that they can trust us with their information. Thanks, Dr. G.

Dr. Richard: All right. Now, Dr - Dr. Brown, I am going to actually when we look at the aggregate, analyze, and I want to summarize it in one word, which is like meaning making. Does that make sense? What does it mean to aggregate? It's like putting things together, so in a way where you can come back to it, and it makes sense. Because I don't want to have everything together and I cannot understand what anything means. I need to categorize them. I need to put them together. I need probably to sort them, all those nice thing that I need to do in order for me to be able to count, for me able to see, to make sense out of what it is. That's what aggregation and analyzing. When I'm analyzing, I'm saying, "OK, is it in line with what I wanted?" So, the last but not least data activity that we want to do is to use and share. I know, if you do not have something, it doesn't make sense. It may be difficult for you to use. It may be difficult for you to share it with others, and you need to know what do you want to use? what do you want to share? While you putting ... Why do you want to use this data? Because it's important for us at this time to make decision, decision to continue the way we were going or decision to adjust. Remember, it is a continuous program learning and improvement that is going to help us make the decision that we need to make, which is change the goal that we have if we need to or change the objective that we need to. So, Dr. Brown, I'm going to actually let you keep us ... Talk us about the wrapping what we are wrapping up with. Oops, I'm sorry, Dr. Brown, I just clicked too hard. OK.

Dr. Brown: That's fine. That's fine. It's another piece of data, another piece of data that we're sharing, so it's all good. So, today, we talked about the four data activities and why they are so important when you are sharing the stories of your families and your program as well as your community. So, you can use those four data activities, and we want to help you to understand that it is not linear. So, you can stop and start and look at different parts of the four data activities so that you can go down the road and make progress towards family outcomes. So, before going to how, you want to know, well, what data do you need, what questions are you asking, what decisions need to be made for the best interest of the children and families and the community that you are serving. So, remember that "If This... Then That." So, quality systems and services to achieve outcomes. And as a supervisor, it's important to also focus on staff to help staff increase their level of comfort. Data really is our friend. It's wonderful. We don't have to be afraid of it because it is information. A long time ago, Dr. G had talked about data as a gift, so that we hope that you can feel a little bit more comfortable in really seeing data as a gift. We never go without giving you some tools, and so in the pod, you will find these resources that you can download. They're also on ECLKC, so Measuring What Matters, it's going to take you through those four data activities. And we also have the Reflect and Plan handout. So, we have some little gifts for you as well. Take it away, Dr. G. You want to bring us home?

Dr. Richard: Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Brown. Thank you so much. And one of the things that we want to make sure that as we are progressing, we need to give you a little time to actually go to take your little tests and your certificate of completion. So, to do that, I'm going to bring you back to your widget. So, we have actually like the Knowledge Check widget. This is where you're going to take ... We're going to give you a minute or two to take your tests. And during that time, we're going to try to stay silent, but I'm going to make sure that I'm telling you that I'm going to do something different again because we cannot stay silent. So, you take your test, you click on that, and you're going to find a little, probably three questions for you to answer. Once you're done with that, you're going to ... There is going to be a popup saying to you like that you are done, and you have met the qualification done. At that time, this is at that time that you can, when you finish, you can go to actually your Certificate widget. When you click on it, you're going to actually see a popup window. The popup is going to ... This is where you're going to want to click on, and when you're click on it, you're going to be able to download your certificate. You can print it from here, but we are strongly recommending again that you download it so you can have it for future use. So, I'm going to stay a little 30 minutes ... I'm sorry, 30 seconds ... 30 minutes ... I don't have you that long. Thirty seconds, so we're going to do that, but as you are taking your test, if that's OK, Dr. Brown and I, we're going to put some reflection question for you. And if you finish your test, you can go ahead and go and try to answer some of those questions in your Reflect and Plan question. So, we're going to give you that minute and I'm putting the reflection question for you. So, as you can see, those questions are there to continue the conversation that we have in here, steps that we can take, how do we know when the difference is made in achieving outcome, and all those ... What I want to make sure that we let you know that we're going to have a little break, very short break, and we will see you then. You need to go ahead and check your platform ... Actually, you're going to go there on your Engagement hub. You can see me using different time, different term. But I want to make sure that I'm right on that. You go to your Engagement hub and go for the next session that you want to attend. Don't forget to consult all the time with Engagement hub. With that, Dr. Brown, I think the last question is what I want to leave our friends with, because we want them to understand that data will help them move from a culture of compliance to a culture of continuous quality improvement. And we will say thank you then, everyone, for being in the session with us. We will meet again ... Depends on what session you have chosen, we will meet again soon. And remember, we have another session planned for us around Community Engagement, Community Partnership later on. So, don't miss any of those session. And we will see you later. Thank you. Dr. Brown, you want to say something?

Dr. Brown: Yes, thank you for diving in and talking about data with us for this first session.

Dr. Richard: Thank you, everyone. See you soon. Dr. Brown: See you soon.