Datasets

Annie E. Casey Foundation

Making Connections

For more than half a century, the Annie E. Casey Foundation has worked to build better futures for disadvantaged children and their families. The Making Connections initiative is a collaboration of local organizations and residents to strengthen families and improve neighborhoods.

Between August 2002 and April 2004, ten Making Connections neighborhoods participated in the baseline data collection. NORC interviewers completed approximately 800 in-person interviews in the five Cohort I sites: Denver, Des Moines, Indianapolis, San Antonio, and White Center (Seattle). For each Cohort II site, which included Hartford, Milwaukee, Oakland, Providence, and Louisville, NORC interviewers completed approximately 700 in-person interviews. NORC’s Telephone Survey Operations Department also completed approximately 700 random digit dial (RDD) city-wide control sample interviews in each of these ten sites. Baseline data were used to evaluate important factors such as neighborhood conditions, services used by residents, family economics, and the health and education of neighborhood children.

NORC returned to all ten neighborhood sites between 2005 and 2007 to complete a second interview with the same families. In 2008, a third wave of data collection began in Des Moines, Indianapolis, Denver, and San Antonio. In 2009 NORC is collecting data in White Center (Seattle) and Providence, and Louisville is scheduled for data collection in 2010. These three waves of data will be used to evaluate local efforts to improve the community and to inform the development of future initiatives.

The Making Connections Survey is the collaborative effort of many organizations: the Annie E. Casey Foundation, NORC, the Urban Institute, Local Management Entities, and research advisors.

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