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Exciting news from the School of Social Work this week, as the fruits of a partnership between RISE3聽and the Obama-era White House were made public. Two reports from BCSSW faculty members聽Tiziana Dearing,聽Summer Hawkins, and聽David Takeuchi聽were released during an event on campus that featured speakers from the Obama administration team, as well as leading organizations across Boston.

The reports,聽Race and Income Equity in Childcare聽and聽Race, Poverty, and Equity in Neighborhood Transportation,聽are the products of a months-long data analysis conducted with聽聽(OSTP) that was designed to investigate how race, income, and places affect access to opportunity.聽RISE3聽was among 30 programs that worked together under the auspices of the Project and was the only academic partner to collaborate with Obama鈥檚 team.

Aden Van Knoppen, former senior advisor to the US Chief Technology Officer for OSTP, provided a keynote in Chestnut Hill underscoring the importance of BCSSW鈥檚 role in mining data towards advocating for the greater good. She also underscored the importance for social service providers to collaborate with academia, with tech, and with communities themselves moving forward, in order to build the most effective interventions possible.

鈥淭here is such a thing as data poverty and it鈥檚 widespread,鈥� she explained. 鈥淗aving access to the information you need to thrive at your fingertips is highly unequal, and access to quality data and the skills to create things with it that meet your needs, or the needs of others, is a form of privilege and of power.鈥�

The Opportunity Project sought to begin to break down the barriers of data poverty, facilitating the use of large-scale data sets that RISE3聽engaged in a systematic set of analyses, including the聽, the聽, and the聽.

During the course of the childcare study, Dearing, Hawkins, and Takeuchi investigated the costs and life choices that come with the decision to place a child in daycare, specifically delving into how income and race/ethnicity have 鈥渃ommon and unique associations with childcare.鈥�

The second report addressed the realities of access to transportation that often go un-discussed. The authors found that 鈥渄ecisions about the type, time spent on, and money used for transportation affect flexibility and quality of life, factors involved in what is sometimes referred to as 鈥榮elf-determination.鈥欌��

Steve Poftak, the Executive Director of the Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston at Harvard University, and聽Wayne Ysaguirre, CEO of聽, participated in the day鈥檚 events, leading a panel response to Summer Hawkins鈥� summary of the reports鈥� findings. A panel of young voices from聽聽also provided their lived experiences vis-脿-vis transportation and childcare.

鈥淎ccess to data is very much an issue of civil rights,鈥� said Takeuchi. 鈥淚t will be important for those of us engaged in finding solutions to the world鈥檚 social ills to recognize this reality, and to advocate for the more equitable, and inclusive, use of data as we partner with communities and like-minded organizations to do our work.鈥�