Who’s Steering the Ship? Reevaluating the Positionality of ECIDS

By Phil Sirinides and Missy Coffey

At times, creating and managing an early childhood integrated data system (ECIDS) can feel like piloting a ship at sea. As we’ve discussed in previous blogs, project teams need to choose their crew carefully and assign appropriate duties, and they must navigate the uncertain waters of piecemeal funding and shifting state priorities.

Today, we discuss one of the most pivotal questions relating to ECIDS design and management: Who is steering the ship?

As a field, we have learned through extensive experience that the positionality of an ECIDS is vital to both its development and its application.

Docking your Ship: Identifying the Technical Host

Positionality begins with the identification of a host agency for your ECIDS. The lead agency obviously plays an important role, and should be selected based on several considerations. These include staffing and capacity, and which agency is most capable of overseeing the myriad technical, administrative, legal, analytic, and even political activities that accompany ECIDS work.

Like a crew navigating the seas, trust is crucial. “We generally counsel people that trust is one of the very first pieces to consider here,” says Adelia Jenkins, executive director of Actionable Intelligence for Social Policy. “Is the entity in a position to act as a neutral convener, and to build trust with all of the other partners, that they’re going to be leading this process to build a shared vision across programs?”

Yet, it is rare that one agency possesses all the expertise and capacity to lead the ECIDS. State agencies that continue to make progress have started co-leading this work, with various partners contributing staff and adding capacity to their teams.

Recruiting Your Crew: Selecting Multi-disciplinary Teams

There are, without question, inherent challenges to any form of multi-system coordination. And in the ECIDS field – where so much depends on system leadership, governance, and partner collaboration – even the best crews and most experienced captains will often encounter rough seas.

Viewing ECIDS as primarily a technical project will limit effective and sustainable use of data. But appropriate stakeholders’ engagement can ensure that perspectives from state administrators, program operations, and practitioners are included from the start.

In Georgia, the Department of Early Care and Learning (DECAL) serves as the lead agency for cross-agency data system work across the state. Bentley Ponder, Deputy Commissioner for Quality Innovations and Partnerships at DECAL, recommends that ECIDS leads begin with a feasibility project, to help build trust and excitement across partnering agencies while also working to integrate data.

By providing partnering agencies with realistic, tangible use cases, you can foster buy-in and create a genuine sense of investment among all members of your team.

Navigating the Waters: Determining State Priorities Across Collaborating State Agencies

Even with an effective and trusted host agency, resilient ECIDS must embrace the concept of shared ownership. This can be achieved, in part, by establishing data governance among all partner agencies.

Data governance is far more than a simple data-sharing agreement; it works to keep the priorities of all your partners in balance. But by establishing shared, long-term goals among partner organizations – charting the same course, in other words – and intentionally positioning your ECIDS to ensure shared, invested ownership, progress is possible.

It begins, says Rebecca Gomez, program officer in education with the Heising-Simons Foundation, with the recognition that the work of building and using an ECIDS is, fundamentally, an iterative process.

“There will be fits and starts along the way, expansions and contractions, and the needs and questions will change,” says Gomez. “This notion that it’s iterative is something that we may talk about, but I don’t think we can talk about it enough in this field. It really is important to achieving goals that meet the needs of different communities at different times.”

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Hear more on this topic and listen to expanded interviews with Jenkins, Ponder and Gomez on our latest ECDataWorks podcast. Find us on your favorite podcast app, or listen here.

Phil Sirinides and Missy Coffey are the principal investigators for ECDataWorks, a nationwide, nonprofit initiative dedicated to advancing early childhood policy and programs through the strategic use of integrated data.

This blog is part of the the ECDataWorks Community initiative, produced with support from the Heising-Simons Foundation.