Wisconsin Risk and Reach Project The Department of Children and Families (DCF) is excited to share a new interactive Risk and Reach website. This tool is intended to assess the needs of young children, birth to 5, as well as potential gaps in services delivered by state and federal programs. Users are able to explore county-level data presented in the form of dynamically generated maps, tables, and scatterplots. The Risk and Reach site strives to promote constructive dialogue, better understanding, and data-informed decisions that improve the well-being of the youngest Wisconsin children. It is intended as a tool to be used by state government, local advocacy groups, and communities to better understand areas of need and identify opportunities for potential investment and program expansion. Community Risk Factors The community risk factors include: Measures of economic Health Safety Educational outcomes Factors that are considered risky are ones that negatively affect the healthy development of children birth to 5. They include indicators such as maternal education, infant birth weight, child welfare involvement, poverty, housing costs, and child care expenses. Community Reach Factors Reach factors include publicly funded programs intended to mitigate against risks to children, reduce the burdens on families and improve the success of young children. They include: Wisconsin FoodShare Wisconsin Shares child care subsidies Regulated child care Early Head Start Head Start 4-year-old Kindergarten Birth to 3 Family Foundations Home Visiting Start Exploring the Risk and Reach Website Partners This project is in collaboration with Applied Population Laboratory (APL), the Institute for Research and Poverty (IRP) at UW-Madison, the Department of Public Instruction (DPI), and the Department of Health Services (DHS) and made possible with PDG funding provided through DCF.
