Inventory of Data Sources on Children's Lives

The Department of Children and Youth Affairs published the National Strategy for Research and Data on Children's Lives, 2011-2016  in November 2011. The implementation of this Strategy will facilitate the utilisation of good quality, easily accessible, internationally comparable information about the lives of children in Ireland.

The research and data strategy is very strongly focused on the improved use of public sector data for research and statistics to support policy making and service delivery. As part of developing the Strategy we have compiled an online inventory of data sources which hold data on, or are relevant to children's lives. It is envisaged that the inventory will be used as a resource for researchers and data users and to heighten awareness of the range of existing data on children's lives.

The inventory is available online as a series of searchable meta-data summaries in tabular format at:

http://www.dcya.gov.ie/inventory-of-data-sources-on-childrens-lives/

The inventory now consists of 117 summary tables from administrative, survey and longitudinal data sources. The summaries themselves are available electronically only, but a print-ready format can be generated from the on-line resource.

The DCYA have published an overview document which sets out the context in which the inventory of data sources was initially compiled, its role in the development of the research and data strategy and an overview of the structure and format of the online meta-data summaries. Hard copies of this overview document will be posted to you. Apologies for any cross posting.