The North Dakota KIDS COUNT program is one of 50 state projects sponsored by Annie E. Casey Foundation. The national KIDS COUNT program is a national and state-by-state effort to track the status of children across the United States and within individual states. By providing policy makers and citizens with benchmarks of child well-being, KIDS COUNT seeks to use data to enrich local, state, and national discussions and encourage informed decision making concerning ways to secure better futures for all children. At the national level, the principal activity of the initiative is the publication of the annual KIDS COUNT Data Book, which uses the best available data to rank state's performance on ten indicators of educational, social, economic, and physical well-being of children.

The Foundation also funds a nationwide network of state-level KIDS COUNT projects, like North Dakota KIDS COUNT (NDKC), that provide a more detailed community-by-community picture of the condition of children. State KIDS COUNT programs publish yearly reports detailing child well-being in local communities where children live. Both national and state KIDS COUNT programs strive to document conditions affecting children in the areas where they live so that national, state, and local decision-making can more effectively address their needs.

NDKC is in its 13th year as a state KIDS COUNT project. It is housed at North Dakota State University, and is a collaboration of partners sharing responsibility for data collection, education, and public awareness activities. In addition, NDKC works with organizations and agencies to provide relevant data for decision makers to more effectively address children's needs through sound policy recommendations.

NDKC uses 7 categories of well-being to organize many of its discussions and data. NDKC publications include the Annual Overview, the Fact Book, the Abridged Fact Book, and the Data Guide. The Fact Book is now published in an electronic format only. NDKC also continues its on-going Inform fact sheet series. Much state-level information is available as interactive data on the national KIDS COUNT website.

View a two-page Inform Fact Sheet that describes the North Dakota KIDS COUNT program: North Dakota KIDS COUNT - "Data, Discussion, and Decision-Making "