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Resources and Tools > Tips, Tools, and Trends
Using Geographic Information Systems
for Policy and Planning
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Imagine being able to improve the
quality and accountability of services by graphically
presenting resource allocation patterns. With Geographic
Information Systems (GIS) accurate details on services
by geographic location are available in a matter of
minutes. GIS is a relatively new technology that provides
better information and better tools for policy planning
and management.
What is GIS?
GIS is an information system designed to capture,
model, analyze, and display data referenced by geographic
coordinates. GIS provides the ability to overlay data
fields and represent them visually (in the form of a
map) to the user. Understanding and interpreting information
that is displayed in a map format may be easier for
several reasons. Traditionally information is shared
in a table format with columnar appearance. GIS provides
the ability to break apart complex information into
several pieces and present data in a spatial layout,
which offers a great deal of information at a glance.
The user-friendly format may increase the satisfaction
with data and use of data by child welfare staff. Also,
as users become more skilled in using GIS a considerable
amount of time may be saved during points of critical
decision-making. Currently GIS is abundantly used in
the fields of environment, energy, and geographical
surveys, but the social policy planning communities
are quickly discovering the benefits of GIS as well.
GIS and Child Welfare
GIS enables many different
types of analysis that can aid administration, management
and planning of child welfare services. Some of the
applications and benefits include the ability to:
Produce clear and useful information
to support effective management decisions. For example,
GIS can be used to create map-based inventory of services
or other information of interest. Also, administrators
may be able to see differences in community characteristics
or differences in local procedures for providing services.
Illustrate the flow of clients
to and from various community services.
GIS can be used to collect data on the sociodemographic
characteristics of neighborhoods served by an agency.
The information may be used to help assess whether the
current services in a given community are adequate and
appropriate for the population.
Predict future needs.
A GIS map can be used to monitor trends and to forecast
service demand changes as result of policy changes. This
knowledge may also help with efforts to allocate funds
by providing visually appealing evidence of need for resources.1
State Case
In New York City, the child welfare system has experienced
much success in allocating resources and planning for
services with the use of GIS. On January 10, 1996, New
York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani created the Administration
for Children's Services (ACS), which is an agency devoted
solely to serving children and their families. The ACS
is held accountable for the protection of children from
abuse and neglect, timely achievement of best permanent
solutions for children in its care, and for the provision
of several services that ensure well-being for children
in New York City (NYC). ACS's jurisdiction, i.e. New
York City, has a population of approximately 8 million
and covers an area of 322 square miles. ACS serves 59
community districts that assist 28,000 children in foster
care and 20,000 families receiving in-home services.
In 1999 NYC incorporated the use of
a Neighborhood-Based Services delivery model (NBS) to
better directly serve the 59 community districts. A
critical component of NBS are the service networks developed
in each neighborhood so children and families can directly
receive services in the communities in which they live.
The institution of this program resulted in the reorganization
of child protective service, foster care, and in-home
services.
With the reorganization of services,
child welfare administrators needed a tool to analyze
how services and resources should be divided among the
communities served by the newly designed service networks.
GIS was the logical solution as policy makers were able
to monitor resource allocation as well as performance
evaluation and quality improvement by geographic locations.
According to Eric Nicklas, of the ACS Management Analysis
Unit, the use of GIS depends on the data, methods, and
people that comprise a working GIS. ACS collects data
on NYC's child welfare system from a vast number of
sources. The two major sources for child welfare data
are the New York State Department of Social Services;
ChildCare Review Services (CCRS) and the partially implemented
SACWIS system referred to as CONNECTIONS. The GIS tool
used by ACS is MapInfo. NYC utilizes data on case addresses,
facility address, and person address. The data used
for GIS is kept in a standard text format and downloaded
into a Microsoft EXCEL spreadsheet. A program was developed
to prep or clean the data. This program standardizes
the address information and corrects a few common errors.
The final step of the data preparation
process involves manually checking the data. Typically,
there are approximately 10% of the addresses that are
'ungeo-codable' and that the cleaning program does not
standardize. For these a manual look-up is employed
in that an analyst compares the address as it appears
in the data system to a street map. This analysis identifies
data entry errors that result in impossible addresses
and often corrections can be made. The result of this
process typically leaves only 2-3% of the addresses
'ungeo-codable'.
This cleaned file of addresses is
processed through, MapInfo, to identify the community
districts (CD) in which each address is located. This
CD assignation allows the mapping of the data by CD,
e.g. the number of placement into foster care based
on child's CD of origin.
It is important to note that the address
information can be accurately geo-coded but still provide
a misleading geographic picture. Consequently, the mix
of addresses should be analyzed to ensure that map reflects
the real service needs. An example of this in New York
City involves looking at the home address of children
in foster care. Often when a child is freed for adoption,
his/her birth parent's address is removed from the case
record and the address for the local child welfare agency
is inserted. One common address used is the main office
of ACS, which is located in lower Manhattan's financial
district. Without adjusting for this issue, the geo-coding
process returns a picture suggesting that there are
several hundred children from the financial district
in foster care. This is not feasible since the financial
district has one of the lowest population's in the city
and only a handful of children enter foster care from
this part of the city in a given year. For this cut
of the service population, the procedure of inserting
the local office's addresses requires that these cases
be removed from the data file to be able to generate
a more accurate geographic picture.
Conclusion
The large, diverse population of NYC and the move
toward NBS made the selection of GIS mapping a good
fit. Now the high-resolution color maps created through
GIS are used to illustrate the differences among communities
in key child welfare indicators, e.g victimization rates,
abuse/neglect indication rates, and foster care placements.
This information is critical in understanding resource
needs throughout the system as well as building a better
understanding of what drives system performance from
a geographic perspective. Other States may find information
collected for NYC to be limiting. The data elements
were chosen as the best elements to answer NYC policy
and planning requirements and the needs of others States
may vary.
For NYC GIS has been a great tool;
however, NYC has two cautions for other States to carefully
consider before investing in GIS mapping. States should
know that the capacity of GIS depends on the data that
is collected. Therefore, States should carefully consider
the data elements that may provide insight into their
day-to-day practice and management analysis. Also, States
must be willing to dedicate staff time to manually check
the data as needed. States should not underestimate
the time and resources needed to successfully explore
the potential uses of GIS in agency planning and policy-making.
For information on the NYC experience,
please contact Eric Nicklas, Director of Management
Analysis, Office of Management, Development, and Research,
NYC's Administration for Children's Services, at (212)
341-2824.
To learn more about GIS technology and its uses around
the country, try out this web site as a starting point
for your research: http://dir.yahoo.com/Science/Geography/Geographic_Information_Systems__GIS_/
1 The
1998 Social Work article by M. Queralt and A.D. Witte
entitled "A map for you? Geographic Information
Systems in the social services" was a valuable
resource in the formulation of this document. (back) |
