4105.0 - Children and Youth News, Nov 2006  
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 29/11/2006   
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WELCOME


UPDATE ON THE INFORMATION DEVELOPMENT PLAN

The information paper Improving Statistics on Children and Youth: an Information Development Plan is to be released on December 8th (the full publication will be available on the Children and Youth Themepage on the ABS website). Major stakeholders in the children and youth field have contributed to the plan to ensure it accurately reflects the policies, programs and statistical activities currently being undertaken in the field. For more information on the Plan please contact Lesley Martin on lesley.martin@abs.gov.au or (08) 9360 5320.


UPDATE ON THE NATIONAL DATA NETWORK: CHILDREN AND YOUTH PORTAL

The National Data Network (NDN) is currently under development and in demonstration phase. The primary aim of the NDN is to provide an internet-based library of data holdings relevant to policy analysis and research, as well as the functionality to link datasets and undertake analysis and reporting on available datasets. In this demonstration phase the NDN contains limited statistical information and services. Work is also underway to establish a Child and Youth portal on the NDN, which is aimed at demonstrating the benefits and functionality of the NDN using a range of datasets relevant to children and youth.

The development of the Child & Youth portal will involve the US Census Bureau product, DataFerrett. DataFerrett can be used to analyse microdata, aggregate, time series and longitudinal data. The power of DataFerrett is its ability to build spreadsheet tables, graphs, including time series graphs, mapped data along with a range of data calculations. Results of analysis are made available through the ‘Hot reports’ function. Please refer to the NDN newsletter no. 11 for more information about DataFerrett.

Agencies can register their interest to participate in this demonstration phase and/or register their data sources for the Child and Youth portal by contacting Patricia O’Reilly via email Patricia.Oreilly@abs.gov.au or by phone on (02) 6252 5032.


2006 CENSUS: THE DATA ENHANCEMENT PROJECT AND UPCOMING PRODUCTS

Data Enhancement Project
The ABS is undertaking a new project called Census Data Enhancement. The central feature of the project is the creation of a Statistical Longitudinal Census Dataset (SLCD). The SLCD will be based on a 5% sample of the population. Records for this sample group will be brought together from each Census by statistical techniques which do not involve the use of name and address. This would provide the means to identify patterns of change in social and economic circumstances, for individuals and households, over time. For further information on the SLCD see the ABS website.

Upcoming Products
A comprehensive range of publications and electronic products are available from the Census, from the popular Social-Economic Index for Areas, which you can use to investigate the socio-economic well-being of Australian communities and identify area of advantage and disadvantage, to CDATA, a powerful desktop software package that allows users to analyse and display comprehensive Census data in detailed maps, graphs and reports. For further information on the 2006 Census Products see the ABS website.