Chapin Hall Web Site Allows for Easy Access to Research Resources

Established in 1985, Chapin Hall is an independent policy research center whose mission is to build knowledge that improves policies and programs for children and youth, families, and their communities. The newly re-designed web site makes their work easily accessible to practitioners and other researchers who can make use of the information to improve the well-being of children and youth.

The work of the Chapin Hall Center for Children is guided by the following principles:

Sound policy is based on continuous knowledge building.
The aim of Chapin Hall’s multidisciplinary research is to learn more about the state of our young people and their families and the degree to which the policies and programs designed to support them are succeeding. While our research concerns the well-being of all children and youth, we particularly focus on what is happening to the most vulnerable so that policymakers and practitioners can create institutions and programs that will help them develop into healthy, educated, productive adults. The concept of Chapin Hall has been replicated in many other locations within and outside of the United States, often with the help of Chapin Hall research fellows. Chapin Hall serves as a fulcrum for interchange among the communities of public policy and child-family research, both nationally and internationally.

Better policy emerges when researchers engage with policymakers and practitioners in long-term collaborations.
Much of Chapin Hall’s research agenda evolves through long-term engagement with public agency directors, government officials, philanthropic and community leaders, and others who turn to us for research evidence that will help shape their policies and programs. In strategic, one-to-one conversations with decision makers, we work to identify problems whose solutions require ongoing data collection and interpretation. For example, we develop analytic tools and systems to monitor outcomes for children and youth and provide technical assistance to help agencies work directly with information resources and apply data to improve performance within their organizations.

A commitment to rigor, independence, and innovation is essential to our work.
Our independent perspective enables us to identify important issues or trends before they are widely recognized. For instance, Chapin Hall helped shape a field of research around the array of activities and resources needed by all young people to thrive physically, socially, and academically. Chapin Hall is also widely known for pioneering research methods that collect, link, and analyze case record data across human service systems to learn about the families using the systems and to understand how institutions and programs interact with each other. We also document and evaluate community-building resources and activities, and analyze the practice of philanthropy in such efforts.

To learn more, explore the Chapin Hall Center for Children Web Site.