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Issue 2—May 28, 2004
Welcome to SAVI Connections, the bimonthly electronic newsletter regarding the SAVI system!
If this message does not look like a web page in your email reader, you can read the latest edition at http://www.savi.org. SAVI Connections provides news about SAVI, demonstrates various ways in which SAVI can benefit your organization, announces release of new data, showcases new tools, highlights a variety of SAVI users, and broadcasts user support and training options. The Polis staff encourages your ideas and feedback. Please address comments to: skandris@iupui.edu.
SAVI PeopleMeet Tricia Frye, Planning Supervisor Indianapolis Public Schools Corporation (317) 226-4554 FryeT@mail.ips.k12.in.us 
Tricia Frye is planning supervisor for Indianapolis Public Schools, the state’s largest school corporation with 42,000 students and 5,000 employees. Tricia became a SAVI user in 1999 when she joined IPS. As planning supervisor, Tricia provides the corporation and individual schools with data to support grant requests, enrollment projections, bus route revisions, and programming. An advanced user, Tricia uses SAVI data to map district and individual school boundaries and highlight various vulnerabilities.
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Every new program starts with an idea, a hypothesis, which when supported by valid data, tested, and repeated, produces effective results. Service economies depend on "information density," to bring people, ideas, and resources together efficiently. Many Central Indiana organizations find that SAVI serves as a useful information resource for program planning. It helps decipher and map community assets and vulnerabilities by geography. It’s quick, easy and available at no cost. Boys and Girls Clubs of Indianapolis learned the value of SAVI when its staff began meeting with parents and community leaders to discuss the program and services offered at the Atkins Boys and Girls Club. After two meetings, it was clear that the staff needed more information about its members. Residents insisted that many of the young people who attended the recreation and education programs lived north of 16th Street and that any change in programming might adversely affect their children’s safety. Staff turned to SAVI to determine where the children live. The result indicated that most children live within a one-mile radius of the club, with many already crossing 16th Street to attend Atkins. While this information confirmed the assumptions the parents and community leaders expressed, it also eliminated another concern about how the children were actually getting to Atkins. Since the majority of the Atkins members live within a one-mile radius, staff and parents realized that the children were walking to the club for its programs. With data from SAVI, Boys and Girls Clubs staff are better prepared to address the specific needs of the Atkins members and their families in providing recreational and educational programming. Though SAVI is specific to the nine-county Indianapolis MSA, SAVI users are sharing their studies and results with other communities. Dr. Gil Liu, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at IU School of Medicine, used SAVI data along with several other tools to study environmental predictors of childhood obesity and shared the results at national medical conferences. The results will improve health program planning efforts by enhancing knowledge of local conditions on obesity, identifying target areas for intervention, and identifying solutions based on factors related to obesity. Dr. Liu’s research uses location-based analysis, which is what SAVI is designed to do. SAVI data can help to establish needs, identify new service opportunities, and address important community problems. Logon to www.savi.org to learn more about SAVI and learn how it can help your organization’s program planning and development efforts.
As a part of the program to revise and enhance SAVI, several new navigation and data retrieval tools are ready for testing at http://beta.savi.org. The beta site enables users to try out some of the proposed new features. User feedback is critical. These new tools, the first in a series of enhancements, will be rolled out to the public on July 1, 2004. Each quarter a new set of tools and features will be introduced on the beta site for testing. Following the completion of each successful testing period, the tools will be incorporated into the main website with helpful tutorials. By using the new tools, users can search database categories either through a quick data selection tab or by a classification keyword search data selection tab. A series of windows-based steps allows users to select a specific geography, either all SAVI counties or an individual SAVI county. Next, users can select a data item within the specific data category and then choose a reporting level. A shopping cart feature enables users to view results in table and map formats. The mapping program allows users to paste maps easily into Word documents or reports. Registered users can save data for future needs as well. Be sure to visit and test the beta site and record your comments soon. You can provide your feedback on-line beginning June 2.
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