The Children’s Data Network (CDN)

Note: This article was updated Monday, June 5 at 12:42am EST Facing criticism and the pressure of public opposition from dozens of child welfare researchers, the California-based RAND Corporation has pulled down a child welfare spending simulation that projected billions of dollars in savings from investments in maltreatment prevention, family preservation services and kinship care.

A new digital resource created by the Children’s Data Network at the University of Southern California’s School of Social Work aims to gauge the health and well-being of children, families and communities in Los Angeles County through the use of data and expert opinions.

In Los Angeles County, a new program will provide free long-term contraceptives to young women and girls who are in or at risk of entering the foster care system.

More than 35 percent of adolescent girls in California’s child-welfare system will have given birth before the age of 21, according to a new report from researchers from the Children’s Data Network.

Los Angeles County’s recently formed Office of Child Protection facilitated, in the words of its interim director, an “uncomfortable” but “courageous discussion” on the uses and implications of data, analytics and risk modeling for child welfare during a community forum on Wednesday in Los Angeles.

Los Angeles County struggles to strike the right balance between human judgment and increasingly sophisticated predictive tools when determining the risk that a child will be abused.   On weekdays, calls to Los Angeles County’s child abuse hotline reach their peak between 2 p.m.