How to collect stories with compassion Here’s the thing about people’s stories – as critical as they are for organizations to understand the difference they are making, they’re not always easy to share. I recently experienced this myself. An advocacy group that I am part of, the Ohio Perinatal Behavioral Health Task Force, is collecting stories related to mental/behavioral health
Back to school by the numbers (and what else we should collect) There’s so much we can measure about the start of a school year, but is that giving us all of the information we need to tell our story? For example, I can quantify lots of things about my daughter’s transition to kindergarten: How long it took us to
Your back-to-school data checklist After years as a student and educator, it’s my first back-to-school season as a mom, and I’ve got all the feels. But I’ve also got a checklist handy of all the things I need to do and buy. No matter whether you’re a student, educator, parents, or nonprofit staff, this is the time where everyone’s scrambling
Family engagement metrics that matter As a mom of a rising kindergartener, I can’t believe that back-to-school season is already upon us. I’ve written before about our journey finding a kindergarten placement for my daughter. Thankfully, that’s been resolved, but it’s been weird navigating this from the parent – and not the school – side. It’s so important to make
Why life’s been humbling lately When I worked in schools, I knew many kids being raised by someone other than their biological parent. Unless they told me directly, I didn’t always know why these families looked the way they did or the circumstances they were going through. When I started in social work research over six years ago, I learned
When numbers help, and when stories matter more I know I talk about data … a lot. But for me, it’s really not about the numbers. It’s not about the spreadsheets (I do still really love spreadsheets though). It’s not about the reports and fancy graphs and charts. It’s about the people behind those numbers. Every row in a spreadsheet
Nothing like motherhood to change your perspective It was about 3 days into being a mom that I thought, “How could I have ever asked a mom to go to a PTO meeting!?” I laugh at myself now because I was clearly not inviting any newly postpartum parents to an event, but that moment was the start of a whole
10 things I’ve learned in 10 years of business Everyone loves a countdown post, right? As I recently celebrated 10 years of being in business, it felt fitting to count down the top 10 things I’ve learned over the years! The past 10 years have been an amazing, winding journey, and I’m so grateful to be able to reflect on
The Engage with Data blog is back Oh hi! [waves awkwardly] I know, it’s been a minute since I last wrote. Back then, I was raising an infant, with no childcare, in the middle of a pandemic. Let’s just say that life felt a little like this: (Parents/caregivers – I know you know.) To survive that crazy time, I had
A gut check While I am lucky that I get to consult with schools and districts in their work with families, it isn’t often that I get to engage with students and families directly (especially since COVID derailed my weekly mentoring sessions at a high school here in Columbus). So I was especially delighted this week, when, through my part-time
