The Virginia Early Childhood Foundation and its community partners are committed to data-driven early childhood practices, guided by principles and values that ensure the ethical, culturally-sensitive, and community-driven sharing and use of data. These principles and values outline important ethical considerations related to sharing data beyond just the applicable legal parameters and capture why this work is so important to communities. Feel free to adopt and adapt these data-sharing principles and values – liberal use will help ensure that your data practices are based on principles that won’t waver amid competing priorities and agendas:

This list of data-sharing principles and values was developed by Greater Richmond Smart Beginnings with input from other Smart Beginnings sites, for use across communities in fostering a data sharing culture (i.e., ethical considerations beyond legal parameters and why this work is important to communities).

Our principles and values can also take the form of a vision for how this seemingly technical work can be such an essential element of on-going partnerships to improve the lives of children and families.