The Rural Early Childhood Mapping Initiative

Rural Early Childhood and the Rural Policy Research Institute (RUPRI) are partners in the Rural Early Childhood Mapping Initiative.

This initiative involves creation of custom maps of child wellbeing and services indicators, as well as development of a free online tool, the Rural Early Childhood Atlas. When completed, the atlas will generate county-level reports of early care and education services and child well-being information, and an interactive tool for creating custom maps.

RUPRI’s Community Information Resource Center contains many national datasets along with unique analytical mapping tools. The Rural Early Childhood Atlas is an expansion of the existing CIRC database to incorporate information about services to young children and their families.

Geographic information tools enable policymakers, program administrators, economists and other analysts to assess the allocation of vital services across communities, states, regions, and the nation. To help public agencies and nongovernmental organizations target services for young children to the areas of greatest need, the Rural Early Childhood Mapping Initiative merges information from the fields of rural economic development and early care and education in a mapping system that is free on the Internet.

Agencies in the states of Mississippi and Missouri were the first to provide administrative datasets for the project. The initial partners in those states include the Mississippi Department of Education, Mississippi Public Broadcasting, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, the Missouri Child Care Resource and Referral Network, and TEACH Early Childhood Missouri. MSKids.org, a major online information resource for Mississippi early childhood advocates, prepared much of the Mississippi data for transfer to the CIRC system. The Annie E. Casey Foundation provided its Kids Count database for inclusion in the project.

Elizabeth F. Shores, M.A.P.H., coordinates the Rural Early Childhood Mapping and Datasets Initiatives for Rural Early Childhood. Christopher L. Fulcher, Ph.D., directs the Community Information Resources Center at RUPRI. Geographer Erin E. Wilson, M.A., of RUPRI and the University of Missouri, and cartographer Chad E. Landgraf of RUPRI and the Oklahoma Rural Health Policy and Research Center at Oklahoma State University, are co-creators of the Rural Early Childhood Atlas.

For more information about this initiative, contact:

Elizabeth F. Shores, Coordinator
Rural Early Childhood Mapping Initiative
efshores@aristotle.net

 

 

46 Blackjack Road / P.O. Box 6013 / Mississippi State, MS / 39762 / tel. 662-325-4954 /
fax 662-325-5436

Contact Elizabeth Shores with questions about the Rural Early Childhood site.
All contents © 2004-2005 National Center for Rural Early Childhood Learning Initiatives

@2005 Mississippi State University. The contents of this web site were developed under a grant from the U.S. Department of Education. However, those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.