Raising Engagement Data Dashboard: A Community-Engaged Research Approach to Build a Community Dashboard

Background: As public confidence in academia has been declining, researchers have been calling for solution-focused and community-engaged research (Mirsa, 2025; London et al. 2024). Community-engaged research disrupts traditional research approaches to democratize knowledge, empower communities, and promote social action. More critically, community-based research has the potential to help restore the public’s trust in science (Mirsa, 2025). This study’s objective was to describe how one community-engaged research project worked to spread awareness of how child welfare impacts communities and provide communities with tools to ignite social change.

Child welfare data demonstrate involvement in foster care varies by race/ethnicity, age, gender, disability status, and geography (AECF, 2025). Despite the availability of administrative data, access to timely, transparent, and community-informed child welfare information remains limited. Data is often restricted to professionals or presented in ways that are inaccessible to the general public. In collaboration with a community organization, this project developed a public-facing data dashboard and training module to support data literacy and empower communities to take action.

Method: This project used two methods of data collection: training tracking tools and focus groups. First, from September 2025 to March 2026, 125 individuals were trained across twelve training sessions (5 in English; 7 in Spanish). Training tracking tools were used to record number of participants and session feedback. Second, we conducted 5 focus groups with 14 training participants. Focus group and training notes were analyzed by the research team, and an inductive approach was used to extract themes.

Results: Our analysis identified three major findings. First, supportive, community-oriented training is critical for data literacy. Participants initially felt “completely lost” in the dashboard and data but found training improved their ability to engage, analyze, and interpret data. Second, accessibility and transparency of child welfare data democratize knowledge and gives communities the ability to understand their own community. Participants appreciated a “one-stop shop” for data related to their community to “check the numbers” and increase awareness about the “reality in their community.” Third, access to relevant data and training empowers communities to take action. Throughout training, participants provided feedback on which metrics were relevant to their community and the usability of the dashboard. This allowed researchers to update and alter the dashboard to better suit communities’ needs. Furthermore, participants reported using the dashboard to act, including writing grant applications, informing program development, and conducting needs assessments.

Implications/Conclusion: By democratizing data access and teaching data literacy, community members are empowered with the knowledge and skills to take social action. This research project provides a practical example of how community-engaged research can strengthen communities, build collaboration between communities and academia, and foster trust in science. Researchers engaged community members to develop and update a community data dashboard to provide timely, accessible, and transparent data. Community members were empowered through training to translate the data into efforts to improve their communities.