Data and Visualization Associate

Position Summary:

This posting is with the Philadelphia Office of Children and Families (OCF) Division of Performance Management and Technology (PMT). OCF supports Philadelphia's most vulnerable children and families and prioritizes safe children, strong families, and supported schools. OCF administers a number of City- supported programs, including Out-of-School Time, Career and Connected Learning (C2L) and PHLpreK. OCF also oversees the Department of Human Services (DHS), which provides child welfare services, delinquent services, and child welfare prevention programs to promote safety, permanency, and well-being for children and youth at risk of abuse, neglect, and delinquency..

The Division of Performance Management and Technology supports the core missions of OCF and DHS in the following ways:

• Evaluating service quality and consistency, identifying needed improvements, and tracking these improvements over time;
• Building a world class data and information technology infrastructure;
• Developing and maintaining integrated information systems and data analytics so that practitioners can easily access and utilize quality and accurate data in their day-to-day decisions;
• Strengthening how the child welfare system utilizes data to make informed decisions about the children and families we serve; and
• Conducting short- and long-term research to evaluate the effectiveness of programs and system-wide initiatives in order to continually inform child welfare policy and practice.

Job Description:

The Data Visualization Associate works with the DHS Communications team and with PMT to make data reporting easier to understand using interactive design elements and data visualization to highlight broad themes and emphasize a system-level understanding of OCF’s service to families and children in Philadelphia. The successful candidate will have expertise in creating effective data visualizations to communicate complex findings for a wide array of audiences, including internal and external stakeholders. The candidate should also have experience building and maintaining relationships, presenting data-driven policy findings to diverse groups of people, and advocating for design-forward data communication within the unit. In addition to leading data communication efforts, the successful candidate will engage with other PMT staff, such as IT staff who maintain databases and the Data Warehouse and monitoring and evaluation staff who conduct evaluations, to develop and support the necessary data infrastructure for visualizing a variety of different data points using dashboards, figures, and design theory. The Data Visualization Associate serves as the point-person for data communication through visualization, compiling data for division-wide reports and leading internal efforts to make them more engaging and informative. For example, the Data Visualization Associate will lead ongoing efforts to revisit current reports and develop new reports to make them more effective at informing the public. This will require the Data Visualization Associate to interact with leadership in PMT, DHS, OCF, and external stakeholders to identify the most important outcomes, coordinating with a team of data analysts to collect data to evaluate those outcomes, and then suggest creative and informative communications strategies that will be visualization-heavy, design-forward, and interactive (when possible).

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Prepare reports, dashboards, and/or other presentation materials to effectively communicate data to families and children in Philadelphia communities, child welfare practitioners, mid- and senior-level child welfare leaders, and the public.
• Effectively lead and supervise project teams that advance effective data communication, advocate for best practices, and coach colleagues on implementing informative visualized data.
• Establish and lead a collaborative environment for project teams where knowledge is shared across disciplines on a regular basis to advance effective data communications.
• Co-develop, clarify and manage the scope of data-collection and reporting projects, define deliverables, and achieve targeted outcomes on time.
• Assemble and engage project teams and build collaborative relationships among project team members.
• Identify needed resources (including staff, hardware, and software), assign responsibilities, and develop timeframes to facilitate successful completion of project activities and deliverables.
• Ensure compatibility and consistency with existing architectural and enterprise standards.
• Convene and chair project meetings with stakeholders, including external agencies such as contracted providers.
• Support development of product dissemination strategies to ensure data communications are accessible to a wide array of audiences.
• Review analyses and implementation plans crafted by team members.
• Translate complex child welfare data into accessible and easy-to-understand communications supported by visualization for the general public through platforms such as Tableau and Power BI
• Communicate (verbally and in writing) effectively with stakeholders and senior business leadership about projects.
• Provide mentorship and training to staff regarding utilizing and interpreting dashboards and other data communication strategies.
• Perform related research, evaluation, and supervision duties as assigned including data systems integration and data analysis. These other duties are particularly important for identifying opportunities to improve data communications through visualization and interactive dashboards.

Skills Required:

• Demonstrate effective project/team management competencies, such as establishing collaborative team structure and mechanisms, the ability to run a project or serve as project manager, and the ability to ensure a successful project lifecycle.
• Communicate (verbally and in writing) effectively with stakeholders participating in this project.
• Demonstrate presentation skills, strategic thinking, and high professional ethics.
• Establish and maintain effective working relationships with OCF staff and external stakeholders including other City agencies and contracted providers.
• Experience building working with relational databases to perform data analyses and build visualizations
• Experience creating and maintaining automated dashboards fed by frequently changing data
• Deep working knowledge of at least one software package that includes dashboarding features (Tableau, PowerBI, SAP BusinessObjects, Qlik, etc.)
• Knowledge of statistics, especially statistical practices related to a social science or human services related field (epidemiology, political science, psychology, sociology, sock work, etc.)
• Information design skills, including an ability to communicate about strategy and define standards related to data visualization and communication
• Demonstrate knowledge and practice of project management principles.
• Demonstrate an ability to identify several courses of action to make informed decisions about project development and implementation.
• Experience preferred in child welfare, behavioral health, education, and or human service organizations.

Education and Experience:

• Completion of a Bachelor’s degree program at an accredited college or university with course work in Social Work/Social Policy, Social Science, and/or other relevant fields.
• Minimum of 5-7 years working with data sets and performance management, quality improvement, and/or evaluation systems.
• Master’s Degree in social science or relevant field preferred.
• Project management experience and/or applicable business experience.
• Knowledge of Microsoft Office Suite, including data analysis tools (like Excel, R, STATA, or others) and Business Intelligence/Visualization Tools (like -Power Bl, Tableau, Qlik, ggplot, or others)
• Knowledge of mapping and geospatial information systems (like ArcGIS Pro, ArcGIS Desktop, GRASS, QGIS, etc).

Equal Opportunity Employment:

PMHCC, Inc. is committed to equal opportunity. It is our policy to support equal employment for all employees and applicants without regard to race, religion, color, sex, sexual preferences, age, national origin, disability, behavioral health status, military status or any other characteristic protected by law.

Americans with Disabilities Act:

Employees as well as applicants who are currently, or become disabled, must be able to perform the functions of the job with either reasonable accommodation or unaided. PMHCC, Inc. will examine reasonable accommodations on a case by case basis in accordance with the law.