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About Countywide Prevention Metrics (CPM)

Background

In June 2017, the Los Angeles County Office of Child Protection (OCP) released Paving the Road to Safety for Our Children: A Prevention Plan for Los Angeles County. The goal of the Countywide Prevention Plan is for every child to be healthy, to be growing and thriving in a strong family, and to be supported by a safe and nurturing community. OCP and the Los Angeles County Chief Information Office (CIO) - along with County department partners, First 5 LA, USC's Children's Data Network, and other key stakeholders - have developed a set of standardized Countywide Prevention Metrics (CPM) to evaluate the effectiveness of prevention-plan implementation efforts.

Purpose of CPM

Show where we are. Show trends - whether we are on the right track. Connect strategic and operational goals. 

To achieve the goal of the Countywide Prevention Plan, we must 1) ensure that strategic goals are aligned to operational goals and 2) be able to track our progress in achieving these goals. To that end, OCP and CIO, with input and guidance from County department partners and critical stakeholders, are working to identify a set of impact and actionable indicators to serve as guideposts for strategic and operational improvements in the County's broad-based prevention programming and policies. The indicators identified in this preliminary release of the CPM are a starting point for common prevention-related measures and will evolve over time.

Impact indicators are strategic-level measures of the extent to which the County has achieved its broader Prevention Plan objectives and longer-term goals at the population level. In other words, they provide a sign of how well we are achieving a society of strong children, families, and communities in the County. Each impact indicator has several accompanying actionable indicators. Actionable indicators are operational-level measures of the performance of key programs and initiatives that relate to the Prevention Plan. Specific actions can be taken to improve the performance of these actionable indicators, which in turn should lead to gains at the population level and move the needle on the relevant impact indicators.

CPM Ecological Framework

To capture the holistic goal of the Prevention Plan, we developed the Countywide Prevention Metrics ecological framework. The ecological framework comprises three levels (strong children, strong families, and strong communities) encompassing three dimensions (health, safety, and development/well-being). This framework views outcomes as arising from the complex interaction among many factors at three levels—the individual (strong children), the relationship (strong family), and the community where social relationships occur (strong community), with the implication that it is necessary to act across multiple levels at the same time to sustain prevention efforts. The framework underscores the need to reduce risk factors and support protective factors across all three levels throughout the three dimensions, and to develop strategies to do so through broad-based prevention programming.  

CPM Impact Indicators

As further described under Methodology and Data Sources, the team identified a set of impact and actionable indicators within this ecological framework. The list of impact indicators, organized within the ecological framework, is below. The Countywide Prevention Metrics Framework’s impact and actionable indicators will serve as guideposts for strategic and operational improvements in the County's broad-based prevention programming, provide direction for policy changes, and create a basis for data-driven decision making.

Preliminary Set of CPM Indicators

Given the large set of impact and actionable indicators identified for the CPM Framework, this release is a preliminary data set consisting of six impact indicators and their corresponding actionable indicators (shown below). The full set of indicators will be published in 2021. 
The actionable indicators, which the team identified in partnership with County departments and stakeholders, are preliminary and in some cases, largely descriptive indicators, rather than action-oriented, because of data limitations (i.e., some program data were not easily accessible in time for this preliminary release) and gaps (i.e., the actionable indicators identified are not currently tracked consistently across programs and were not available in time for this preliminary release). The actionable indicators may change in future data releases pending further stakeholder input and improvements in data availability. 
About Los Angeles County Office of Child Protection
The Office of Child Protection (OCP) is an independent office reporting to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors and was created in February 2015 to improve communication, coordination, and accountability across agencies involved in the child protection network so that vulnerable children have a better chance of growing up safer and healthier. The OCP’s mission is to lead a broad partnership that implements meaningful solutions to improve the lives of our children and families.
About Los Angeles County Chief Information Office
The Chief Information Office (CIO) within the Chief Executive Office provides vision and strategic direction for the effective use of information technology (IT), data, and analytics to achieve business objectives and improve the delivery of services throughout the County of Los Angeles. The CIO serves as the County Data Steward and is responsible for management and oversight of the County's data assets. In this role, the CIO also manages the Information Hub, a shared data platform linking data from multiple County and non-County agencies.