Information for Change-Current Work

LISC Sustainable Communities Project
The Providence Plan (TPP) will serve as the local Data Partner on a three-year project with the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC).  LISC has developed a Sustainable Communities initiative to evaluate and monitor the health of eleven U.S. communities.  LISC will be focusing on the five dimensions of Sustainable Communities—real estate investment, family income and wealth, economic activity, education, and healthy environments and behaviors.  Four of these communities will be analyzed in depth—Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Providence, and Minneapolis.  Select neighborhoods in both Providence and Woonsocket will be evaluated by TPP with a set of measures for tracking and monitoring community trends for demographic, social, and economic conditions. 

Statewide Planning Parcel-Based Land Use Tracking Pilot
The Providence Plan (TPP) Is exploring methods of using parcel-based data to track land use change over time. Using the City of Cranston as a test case, we are comparing 2002 and 2006 parcel data to se if changes in assessment attributes or physical parcels are a reliable indicator of land use change.

Using Open-Source Technology to Enhance Post-Release Supervision Systems
The Providence Plan and The Urban Institute have recently received funding from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) to develop a geospatial application designed to help corrections, public safety, and social service agencies better supervise and assist returning prisoners. In the proposed project, The Providence Plan will design a Web-based tool that will enable users to conduct specialized queries of the locations of released prisoners, map those results at the address level, and then overlay the results with additional spatially-enabled datasets, such as support services for former prisoners. The Urban Institute will oversee the evaluation, process documentation, and dissemination activities. The two organizations have worked together for over 10 years on numerous projects, including the Institute’s Prisoner Reentry Mapping Network and National Neighborhood Indicator Partnership.

LISC Community Safety Initiative Mapping
Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) and Greater Elmwood Neighborhood Services (GENS) have engaged ProvPlan for a variety of mapping tasks focusing on assets and liabilities in the Elmwood neighborhood. Key partners include the Providence Police Department and State Probation & Parole.

Statewide Internet Map Server for Economic Development
The Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation continues to engage ProvPlan to maintain and enhanse an Internet Map Server application to support local economic development and planning activities. This online tool provides access to statewide data on demographics, socioeconomics, land use, utilities, transportation, natural features, businesses, and a host of other data related to site suitability and economic analysis. It will also include parcel-based data (where available) paired with search capability.   

Providence Police CompStat Support
Since autumn 2003, ProvPlan has been performing weekly crime mapping and statistical analysis for the Providence Police Department to support their internal CompStat accountability and strategic response program. We also provide the Department with specialized analysis around particular issues such as after-school crime, incident “hot spot” identification, and sex offender mapping.

Weed & Seed
In partnership with the Providence Police and the Weed & Seed Coordinator, ProvPlan provides crime analysis and mapping, indicator tracking, and website development services.

Department of Health
ProvPlan has had a longstanding relationship with the Rhode Island Department of Health (HEALTH)and has analyzed data related to child health such as births to teens and single mothers, access to prenatal care, and blood-lead levels.

Teen Birth Study: ProvPlan has a three-year project with HEALTH to explore the factors related to positive birth outcomes in order to address issues associated with teen births. ProvPlan will identify and gather pertinent data, perform data analysis and mapping, and share our findings with HEALTH and its partners.  In addition to identifying the neighborhood indicators associated with teen pregnancy and child well-being, this project will involve an in depth exploration of the correlation between poor birth outcomes and health and educational outcomes. 

Through this investigation, ProvPlan will identify the health and educational outcomes of children born to teen parents.  We will also explore the question of whether children of teens have higher rates of poor educational outcomes compared to children of adults.  Particular attention will be given to identifying the determinants of repeat pregnancy as well as missed opportunities to prevent repeat pregnancies.

Data Utilization Training and Technical Assistance: ProvPlan will be working with community based HEALTH partners, particularly recipients of CATCH funding, to provide training and technical assistance in understanding how to interpret data and use information tools to guide programs through the stages of analysis, strategic planning, implementation, and evaluation.

This work will provide ongoing assistance to a minimum of six community-based health coalitions throughout the state as well as provide a series of workshops open to all health partners where participants can work on common challenges facing community based health initiatives in Rhode Island. ProvPlan will work in partnership with HEALTH to develop performance and outcome indicators to measure the impact and success of these initiatives.

RIDE Providence Schools Analysis
ProvPlan has had a longstanding relationship with the Rhode Island Department of Education and has performed analysis of student mobility and its relation to test scores as well as the potential for neighborhood schools at elementary and middle school levels. Our current project examines student mobility Statewide using the universal student identifier.

Past Work...

Questions regarding information projects should be addressed to Jim Lucht.