Principles
Data collection, sharing and reporting enable decision-makers, agencies and systems to assess the performance of programs that serve youth and families.
Decision-makers, agencies and systems establish clear outcomes they wish to achieve and the indicators they will use to measure progress towards those outcomes; they develop a data collection system that takes baseline measurements and then tracks these indicators over relevant time periods.
Decision-makers, agencies and systems with responsibility for serving youth and their families develop a culture of accountability through the establishment of strong evaluation systems for each of the participating agencies and their collaborative efforts.
Decision-makers, agencies and systems use data collection, sharing and reporting to ensure that evidence-based programs are implemented with fidelity to the model.
Sharing of personally-identifiable information for aggregate reporting purposes for program evaluation or performance measurement is done on an as-needed basis and in compliance with all ethical principles and applicable federal and state laws.
Privacy rules including access rights and security safeguards minimize the potential for undesirable publication of personally identifiable case information.
Stakeholders are held accountable for improper sharing and use of personally identifiable information.
Certain ethical principles protect human subjects involved in research and, therefore, must also guide any data collection, sharing and reporting conducted in conjunction with such research.[1] These ethical principles are:
- Respect for persons. Individuals should be treated as autonomous agents, and those persons with diminished autonomy are entitled to protection;
- Beneficence. Individuals are entitled to protections and actions that will maximize possible benefits and eliminate, or at least minimize, possible harms to them; and
- Justice. The benefits and burden of research are fairly distributed among individuals.
The collection and disclosure of de-identified data for aggregate reporting purposes does not raise the same privacy issues as personally identifiable data; for that reason there is a presumption to share de-identified data for aggregate reporting purposes.
All decision-makers, agencies and systems responsible for serving youth involved with, or at risk of involvement in, the juvenile justice system participate in the creation of, and ongoing evaluation of, the data collection, sharing and reporting projects.