The Partnership For Children (PFC), Kansas City, recently released the 18th Annual KIDS COUNT in Missouri Data Book documenting the status of children in all 114 Missouri counties and the City of St. Louis. The annual publication is a collaborative project of PFC, Office of Social and Economic Data Analysis (OSEDA) -University of Missouri, the Children’s Trust Fund (CTF), and more than 20 public and private organizations from across the state.
The online resource provides information on measures of child well-being covering areas such as health, education, financial security, juvenile justice and child protection. The 2010 Data Book finds that during the most recent reporting period, Missouri made improvements in seven of the key KIDS COUNT indicators including a reduction in child abuse and neglect, infant mortality and the rate of children placed in foster or alternative care. Three indicators were worse including low bith weight infants, high school drop-out rate and students enrolled in free and reduced lunch programs.
“Kids Count continues to be an excellent resource providing valuable information to individual counties and communities about successes, challenges and gaps with regard to children’s issues,” said CTF Executive Director Kirk Schreiber. “Making this data so readily available and accessible on an annual basis helps policy makers, community and state leaders, child helping professionals, and each citizen to keep children and families a top priority as they plan for the future.”
Data for the report is compiled from more than 80 federal, state, county and municipal sources by OSEDA. Primary funding for the project this year was provided by the Children’s Trust Fund.
