The National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect (NDACAN) offers a wide variety of large-scale data for studying children, including detailed data on foster and adoptive care, child maltreatment, and transitions to adulthood. This workshop will introduce participants to the wealth of U.S. administrative data on child welfare and to methods for accessing, organizing, and analyzing them. Presentations will focus flagship datasets and new acquisitions, linking procedures, services and support available through the NDACAN, upcoming opportunities for restricted microdata access, and prior and potential uses of data in demographic, policy, and other social science research. Researchers at all levels of training and experience and from all research settings are encouraged to attend.

The goals of this workshop are to:

• Introduce researchers to the unique data and research supports that are available through the NDACAN.
• Teach participants how to manipulate NDACAN data, including linking administrative datasets.
• Expose potential users to the types of research questions that NDACAN data can answer.
• Foster interdisciplinary dialog about trends and challenges in using administrative data for child welfare and population research.

List of Presenters:

• Alexander Roehrkasse, Postdoctoral Associate, NDACAN and Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research, Cornell University
• Erin McCauley, Graduate Associate, NDACAN; Doctoral Candidate, Departments of Policy Analysis and Management and of Sociology, Cornell University
• Christopher Wildeman, Professor, Department of Policy Analysis and Management; Director, NDACAN and Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research; Associate Vice Provost for the Social Sciences, Cornell University