Connect, Communicate, Collaborate - Winter 2021

As CCRS moves ahead into 2021, we also look back to our activities and accomplishments in the last part of 2020. CCRS, like everyone, has faced considerable challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic, but we have also risen to the occasion. Specifically:

• Public Allies Delaware has been faced with restructuring how allies work with partner organizations to an online format, but have also received substantial philanthropic support during this process. 
• KIDS COUNT has continued to provide critical data to inform children’s issues in Delaware, and has provided a webinar series and policy briefs that go one step further in using that data to inform critical children’s issues in Delaware.
• CCRS’s housing and homelessness program has not only provided information and analyses on the Delaware-specific of the pandemic on eviction and homelessness, it has also worked with stakeholders in efforts to expand services to those who have lost their housing stability during the pandemic. 
• CCRS’s Medicaid program continues to expand on its portfolio of projects using Medicaid data to examine critical issues including opioid use, homelessness, and contraceptive use. 
• CCRS continues, in the face of the pandemic, to offer expanded programming to support non-profit and community development efforts in Delaware.

Finally, as part of the Biden School’s more general initiative to examine and deepen its commitment to greater diversity, equity and inclusion, CCRS is assessing our approach to community engagement and ways in which our work can be more collaborative with and responsive to community stakeholders whose voices are often underrepresented or muted amidst efforts to engage in research and service activities. 

We at CCRS wish you the best for 2021. Furthermore, we look forward to working in solidarity with you to address and overcome challenges that will continue into 2021. 

Nonprofit Management Essentials Program: In these challenging times, there is no better time to change the world then through a career in the nonprofit sector! Registration is now open for the new online Nonprofit Management Essentials program.   Designed to prepare early to mid-career nonprofit professionals to move into leadership roles, the class will run from February to May 2021.  For more information, visit our website.

In the news:  Signe Bell​, Director of CCRS’ Nonprofit & Community Programs and NACC Board member, contributed Through Crisis and Chaos Lies Opportunity to the Nonprofit Academic Centers Council (NACC) November 2020 NACC News.

​Public Allies Delaware, a program of CCRS recently received $25,000 from Laffey McHugh Foundation to support virtual conversion of their training and learning curriculum.  Additionally, Highmark plans to gift $20,000 to support our Ally placed with Christiana Care's Workforce Development program within the Office of Health Equity.

Timeline Tuesdays: Data Snapshot Debut Webinar Series.  In a year-long webinar series entitled "Timeline Tuesdays," KIDS COUNT in Delaware is bringing together leaders from across the state to engage in conversations - both grounded in data and informed by those working in the field - to advance collaboration towards positive outcomes for children and families. The goal of this series is to translate research and policy from the past 25 years into effective action steps in partnership with stakeholders.

Future webinar dates & topics planned:

• January 19, 2021 at 1:00 PM Data Snapshot: Infant Mortality
• February 16, 2021 at 1:00 PM Data Snapshot: Lead Poisoning
• March 16, 2021 at 1:00 PM Data Snapshot: Home Ownership
• April 20, 2021 at 1:00 PM Data Snapshot: High School Graduation
• May 18, 2021 at 1:00 PM Data Snapshot: Children in Poverty
• June 15, 2021 at 1:00 PM Data Snapshot: Student Assessment
• July 20, 2021 at 1:00 PM Data Snapshot: Children in One-Parent Families
• August 17, 2021 at 1:00 PM Data Snapshot: Births to Teens
• September 21, 2021 at 1:00 PM Data Snapshot Wrap-up, Revisit and Review

A recording, a copy of the data presentation, and supplemental materials for each webinar already held can be found online. These include:

• ​Data Snapshot: Health Coverage held on September 20, 2020
• Data Snapshot: Early Care and Education held on October 20, 2020
• Data Snapshot: Adverse Childhood Experiences held on November 17, 2020
• Data Snapshot: Food Insecurity held on December 15, 2020

2021 KIDS COUNT in Delaware Legislative Calendar: This "page-a-day" style calendar  which counts down from the Delaware General Assembly's first day back (January 12, 2021) to the end of the legislative session contains data on children and their families pulled from the most recently released fact book. The data is supplemented with examples of policy decisions impacting children and highlights of select organizations working on behalf of Delaware's youngest.  The calendar is distributed to Delaware legislators each year.

​Kids, Families and COVID-19: Pandemic Pain Points and the Urgent Need to Respond​: This KIDS COUNT report, released by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, examined data from weekly surveys conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau that demonstrate how families across the country are challenged to meet basic needs during this global public health crisis while managing school, work and mental health. Mirroring the national average, in Delaware more than one in six adults with children living in the household (18%) said they had only slight confidence or no confidence at all that they would be able to make their next rent or mortgage payment on time. Food insecurity, already a problem for more than one in 10 households nationally before the pandemic, has also increased, and the figures for families of color are particularly high. Nationwide 14% and in Delaware 16% of adults with children living in the household reported that in the most recent week during the crisis, their household sometimes or always did not have enough to eat.

GIS DAY: Becky McColl and Erin Lynch​, both Assistant Policy Scientists at CCRS, participated in the University of Delaware's GIS day on November 18, 2020. Their presentation titled Mapping Poverty in Delaware used a series of maps to explore poverty levels among Delaware the 2014-2018 American Community Survey. They explained how studying poverty level by location, using ArcMap software, can be an important tool in examining the different needs of Delaware residents and trends that can inform resource utilization and policy decisions.  Their presentation can be viewed here​. 

Multi-State Opioid Study:  CCRS has been approved for funding by the Delaware Division of Medicaid and Medical Assistance to participate in the third year of an 11 state analysis of opioid prevalence and health utilization.  This project is sponsored by AcademyHealth’s MODRN, a distributed research network.  CCRS research team: Mary Joan McDuffie, Erin Lynch, Eli Turkel and Emily Loughlin​.

DELCAN: The CCRS research team (Erin Knight; Mary Joan McDuffie; Katie Gifford; Rebecca McColl; and Corinne Bogan) continue to work on the evaluation of the Delaware Contraceptive Access Now Initiative (link), collaborating with the University of Maryland.  In the 5th year of this evaluation, analysis is focused on contraceptive adoption of post-partum women, comparing Delaware and Maryland data. We are also working with colleagues doing similar evaluations across the country, as well as at ASTHO (Association of State and Territorial Health Officials) and CECA (Coalition to Expand Contraceptive Access), on a long term effort to assess whether our collective findings warrant a determination that contraceptive access initiatives belong in CDC's "Community Guide" of evidence-based public health practices.

​Corinne Bogan, graduate research assistant, is working on a brief of long-acting reversible contraceptives (LARCs) and has done an environmental scan of the states to see which states have modified their Medicaid reimbursement policies for immediate postpartum LARC. Previously, most Medicaid agencies only made a single bundled payment for labor and delivery regardless of the services provided, and thus excluded the reimbursement of IPP LARC​.

New INBRE Projects: Three new INBRE projects have been funded.  CCRS research team will be working on the following analyses (Mary Joan McDuffie, Janice Barlow, Erin Lynch, Eli Turkel):

• Exposure to lead is a well-documented risk to children’s health. (Kelli O. Thompson, Nemours Children’s Health System).
• Examining Functional Literacy, Health Literacy, and Medication Adherence among African Americans with Hypertension (Dr. Yendelela Cuffee, UD College of Health Sciences)
• Describing the Sickle Cell Population in Delaware to Inform Novel Models of Care Delivery (Dr. Stephanie Guarino, Christiana Care)

Delaware SUPPORT Project: Two ongoing SUPPORT projects are ongoing to examine substance abuse disorder (SUD) within Delaware.  Katie Fitzpatrick and Katie Gifford are investigating annual prevalence rates of SUD and the geographic distribution within our state.  Eli Turkel and Mary Joan McDuffie​ are focusing on quarterly prevalence rates and services.  In addition, Eli Turkel is leading the focus on qualitative interviews along with Erin Knight​.

Delaware STI Project: Katie Fitzpatrick leads a project on examining sexually transmitted infections (STIs) within the Delaware Medicaid population.  The CCRS research team (Erin Knight​; Katie Gifford; and Mary Joan McDuffie) are utilizing the Medicaid claims and encounter data to analyze testing and costs associated with treatment.  This project is funded by DE ACCEL.

Homeless and Health Care Utilization:  The CCRS research team (Steve Metraux; Mary Joan McDuffie;  Erin Lynch; and Eli Turkel) is continuing work through a partnership with the Corporation for Supportive Housing (CSH), supported by DMMA, on a project working to understand shared populations and their health care and housing needs by the process of matching Medicaid Management Information System (MMIS) data from DMMA with data from the Delaware homeless Continuum of Care's (CoC) Community Management Information System (CMIS).

CCRS Director Steve Metraux​ conducted a series of focus groups of people currently experiencing homelessness as part of providing guidance to New Castle County's Community Development and Housing Division in their conversion of the Sheraton Wilmington South to the Hope Center shelter. Other related projects that Dr. Metraux is currently working on (with graduate student Josh Solge​) is a landscape scan of family homelessness in Delaware; and a study examining links between eviction and subsequent homelessness among Delawareans currently experiencing homelessness. He is also part of a team completing an evaluation of Los Angeles County's Homelessness Initiative.

PhD student Alexa Timmreck, working with the Housing Alliance of Delaware, has completed “Racial Dispar​ities and Equity: Homelessness in Delaware." She is also tracking trends in the demand for homeless services over time through HAD's Centralized Intake system. ​

​CCRS has partnered with Cinnaire and is providing program administration for the recently launched Jumpstart Wilmington program, which aims to help Wilmington locals become real estate developers in their own neighborhoods. The program successfully graduated its first cohort in October 2020 and its second cohort will begin in early February 2021. The program also conducted ​its first virtual networking event, connecting graduates of the program with members of the Wilmington development community. Future cohorts are scheduled for May and August 2021. Click here​ for more information.