We CANS do it: Translating Complex Child Welfare Data into Actionable Insights with R Shiny

"Analyzing child welfare assessment data presents unique challenges, particularly when insights must be communicated across diverse geographic levels and to a wide range of stakeholders. Thus, dynamic, interactive tools that allow users to select variables of interest and explore data through customizable tables and visualizations are essential for those working in the child welfare space. The R Shiny package enables the creation of browser-based, server-hosted applications for data examination and visualization, facilitating easier access to up-to-date data insights with just a click of a button. Given the complexity of integrating multiple datasets, the open-source tool RStudio is an ideal choice for combining and cleaning the data and developing a tool to present findings from the merged, cleaned dataset.

This presentation will showcase an R Shiny application developed through a collaboration between the Vanderbilt University Center of Excellence for Children in State Custody and the Department of Biostatistics. The application demonstrates analyses of Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths (CANS) assessment data merged with custody and placement data from across Tennessee, featuring customizable tables, plots, and heat maps at the county, regional, and statewide levels. The session will also cover practical strategies for data cleaning, integration, and visualization, offering insights into both the technical development and applied use of the tool in a real-world policy setting."