Episode # 17: Foster Insights Director Noah Duncan

Welcome to our latest edition of WonkCast: People Power Policy.

I’m Zach Laris, and this is WonkCast—where we spotlight the people, ideas, and tensions shaping child and family policy.

Decision-makers are both drowning in and starving for data.

What matters isn’t volume, it’s value; actionable analytics that can inform hard choices under constraint.

Metrics like foster home utilization and adverse placement scores don’t just measure state capacity; they equip leaders to reshape it in service of impact-focused goals.

Today’s guest leads the team behind these and other analytical tools that are quietly reshaping state and federal policy.

Noah Duncan is the director of Foster Insights, a University of Chicago-based non-profit that partners with child welfare leaders who want to use data to understand the challenges they’re facing and develop solutions that will actually work.

We talked about how his outsider perspective informed novel and insight-generating questions about child welfare, what practices seem rational until you look at the metrics, and how to ensure analytics are a compass, rather than a crutch.

This conversation will give you insight into the emerging data-driven approaches behind reforms across the country, and an understanding of the deeper analytical layer powering an idea like the A Home for Every Child initiative

Sponsorship Shoutout

Special thanks to Binti for their foundational sponsorship of WonkCast.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.childwelfarewonk.com