Key FCDA concepts
The FCDA contains case record information on over 2 million children who have spent time in foster care. It includes dates of events, placement types, demographic data, county characteristics—just a huge amount of information. Because all states manage their electronic data differently, when we at the Data Center receive data from a member state, we have to organize that material systematically so that information from all member states can be analyzed in the same way, according to the same rules. Therefore, to make maximum use of the FCDA web tool, you’ll need to get familiar with the way in which the FCDA organizes data. Here at the Data Center, we call this “thinking inside the box”—the FCDA has a certain structure, and once you’re inside it, you can use the elements of that structure to conduct powerful analyses. The structural components of the FCDA are explained in detail in the… Read more >