Data chats with residents and community service providers

Valuing community member insight
A goal of the FoodCare Coalition is to include community members in our work. During September and October, our partners at Data You Can Use conducted data chats with two resident groups – Muskego Way Forward and Rooted and Rising. In addition, there was one group of Milwaukee-based service providers who participated, hosted by the Milwaukee Food Council. As a coalition, we’re focused on bringing a diverse group of partners together to address food insecurity that kids and families experience. We don’t have all the answers, and wanted to hear about both experiences and solutions to addressing food insecurity.

Using data chats to drive next steps
Data chats are a model created by Data You Can Use to convene community members about data. These chats are unique in that they are not focus groups; we were not asking for feedback on our current strategies – the conversations are intended to be a tool for bidirectional learning. Participants are asked to bring their insights and experience to interpret the data and to formulate solutions. These data chats are about  90-minutes in length and up to 12 people can join. The templates, questions and data are shared with the community groups, and they can replicate the data chats on their own.

Once the results are available, they’ll be taken back to the same resident and service provider groups who participated to discuss results, and as a coalition, we will incorporate solutions into our work.

Click here to learn more about the FoodCare Coalition and follow Data You Can Use for more information on data chats.

More about the food security initiative can be found here.