Dr. Aliah Carolan-Silva is the Vice President of Research at Horizon Education Alliance, a key partner in LEAD Elkhart County.
On behalf of the many partners who have contributed to the launch of LEAD Elkhart County, I am excited to introduce this new resource to our community. The name LEAD Elkhart County (Learning, Engagement and Attainment Dashboard) was selected to reflect our commitment to growth and development for our county’s residents throughout their life. As a data dashboard, LEAD Elkhart County aims to provide access to data that highlight outcomes our community cares about. Although we know that not everything that matters can be measured, the indicators that we choose to pay attention to as a community and how we choose to respond to those measures matters a great deal.
The goal for the data indicators represented on LEAD Elkhart County is to provide a holistic view of developmental milestones, starting in early childhood through earning a high-value credential aligned with career success. These indicators help us better understand our strengths and challenges in supporting our children, youth and adults in preparing to thrive in both our workforce and our community. We identified “learning,” “engagement” and “attainment” as three critical components to positive growth and life success.
Learning: The opportunity for life-long learning is critical for healthy growth and development at all ages, whether that means young children having access to environments that nurture their brain development or older adults having the opportunity to gain critical literacy skills and complete a high school diploma.
Engagement: We know that people of all ages can learn and succeed better when they feel engaged with the learning process – this can mean young people having motivation to come to school or adults persisting in postsecondary programs because they feel supported in their learning and see a benefit for their future jobs and lives.
Attainment: Attainment refers to the percentage of adults (ages 25 years and older) in a community who have earned one or more high-value credentials. Credentials reflect the culmination of a learning experience that ideally provides opportunities for the development of knowledge and skills of value in the workforce and in life.
The indicators on LEAD Elkhart County bring together data from multiple sources, including from state agencies (Indiana Department of Education, Indiana Commision for Higher Education), national agencies (United States Department of Labor, United States Census Bureau) and local data collection efforts such as the Early Childhood Skills Inventory. From a systems perspective, we believe these indicators represent an initial set of “leading” indicators that have the potential to help us better understand our community’s future well-being and prosperity.
We are excited to share these indicators as a starting point for community conversations – and we hope these conversations can lead us to identify additional metrics that matter for our community and point us towards action. We invite the community to engage with this work!
Photo: Elkhart County 7th-graders participate in Career Quest, an annual exploration of career pathways featuring interactive activities with 50 local employers across four industry sectors. (Photo courtesy of Photography by Kelly and Justin)
