Created: 10/13/2008

Project Title: Rural Homeless Research Group

Project Category: Economic

Project Status: Proposal

CASE Competition: University of North Dakota - UND Fall 2008

Grant Winner

Problem: 

Solution:  

College or University: University of North Dakota

State: North Dakota

Student Name: craig aaron meiers

Year in College: Senior

Major: Social Work

Advisor Name: Dr. Andrew Quinn

Partner Name: The Northlands Rescue Mission

Section 2

(not more than one paragraph for your response)

What societal problem does your project solve?

This project will work with Northlands Rescue Mission in Grand Forks to identify and problem solve around the social problems that tend to lead to individuals becoming homeless. In doing so the hope is to collaborate, in concert with The Mission to develop an informational base, potential social service programs, and suggestions to help assist in alleviating the prevalent social problems that are found to be common in the homeless within Grand Forks.

What would be the measurable outcomes of the partnership that you propose to create between the community and your educational institution?

The most tangible results of the project will include the published analysis of our research that we will provide to local and regional media and academic sources. Another measurable outcome will be the programming we intend to develop with our community partner. Volunteers from the organization and our research group will staff this program. It will also result in a self sustaining student research group on campus that will be able to continue to examine a new social issue every year. This project will also result in the basis for both independent studies and thesis for students helping with the research.

How  would you, with the support of your faculty advisor on campus and some one from the community, work together around this specified community issue?

The faculty advisor will help to guide our research by assisting with the development of a research design as well as helping to navigate through the system of gaining Institutional Review Board approval. The community organization will help to build our base knowledge of issues affecting the target population and provide an intervention program and recommendations based on the information gathered from our study.

Section 3

(not more than one paragraph for your response)

How would you envision sharing power and decision making in the partnership? In other words, instead of doing something for the community how would you do something with the community?

I would like the Student Social Research Group to function as an autonomous entity. The use of faculty advisement would help to guide the decisions of the group as well as provide insight into potential problems. Our relationship with The Northlands Rescue Mission would be a collaborative one and be most significant in the beginning and ending stages of our project. The beginning stage would be the development of a measurement tool, specifically a survey with both scaled and open-ended responses. The ending stage would be community action and program development tailored to the results of our research.

How would you collect data on what the project was doing and use it in the decision making process?

We would use interviews and surveys of both organizational leaders within the agency and a significant number of homeless individuals. Our information would be analyzed and interpreted using both a quantitative and qualitative approach. Then based on the prevalence of different social issues we will develop our response in the form of a collaborative intervention. The use of collected data will include a distribution of published results to several local agencies and community decision makers as well as a focused remediation effort in partnership with The Mission.

Section 4

(not more than one paragraph for your response)

What would be the project activities?  Give examples of how the strengths already existing in the community will be acknowledged, built upon, and enhanced in the partnership to solve the problem.

There is already a large number of students from UND who volunteer at The Mission. The existing volunteers help to form a relationship between the agency and the university and may be able to assist in our response to our research. There is also a large base of individuals from the community who contribute time and funds to help combat homelessness. By engaging in a community awareness campaign of communicating the results of our research to area media and social service agencies we will be able to activate the base of contributors as well as raise awareness about this issue.

Section 5

(not more than one paragraph for your response)

What obstacles or challenges might you encounter in implementing your project, and how would you address them?

We may encounter problems gathering data form the homeless population. There may be individuals reluctant to share personal information. We may also have a difficult time locating homeless individuals who do not reside at The Mission. However, I feel that through the co-operative effort of the students who will be participating in this project, our faculty advisor, and The Northlands Rescue Mission we will be able to quickly identify and remediate any procedural difficulties that arise. We can also ask participants in the survey for help contacting other homeless individuals not residing at the shelter.

Section 6

(not more than one paragraph for your response)

Recruiting Volunteers:
Would you recruit additional student volunteers? If so, how?

I have already recruited 20 students from the social work department who want to participate in the proposed Student Social Research Group. The group will remain open to membership throughout the year as well as entertain the possibility of interdepartmental cooperation with students of other disciplines.

Enlisting Partners:
Do you envision enlisting businesses, or other organizations, etc., to help; if so, how?

We plan on starting our research with the staff and residents of The Mission however, it is possible that through the course of gathering information it may determined to be beneficial to involve other agencies from the community who are involved with the target population.

Section 7

(not more than one paragraph for your response)

How would the award money be used here?
If your project idea is an innovation of an existing program, what are its current funding sources?

$150-Office supplies(paper, pens, clickers, files, and lock box to protect confidential information) for gathering and analysis of data.
$150 –Postage and materials for distribution of our research results
$300- in $5.00 food vouchers for incentives to homeless research participants
$300 – Used for the publication of our data in the form of informational pamphlets.
$100-Software to develop an educational presentation to share our research.

Section 8

(not more than one paragraph for your response)

What do you anticipate learning from engaging in the service project?

This will be an excellent opportunity for many students to build their applied research skills as well as learning the process of working with the Institutional Review Board, the community, and individual subjects. It will also be a great way to apply social work values like social justice, dignity and worth of the individual, the importance of human relationships, and building professional competence. Most importantly, we will learn extensively the problems faced by the homeless in our town and what is and is not being done to help restore them to a higher standard of living with access to a wider range of services.

Section 9

(not more than one paragraph for your response)

If the above questions have not enabled you to convey the essence and value of your project’s impact, use this space to supplement your answers.

I believe that this project will be a outstanding opprotunity for the students in the group to apply research and social work skills in an applied setting. It will also strengthen existing bond between The Mission and social work students. Additionally it will benefit the Grand Forks homeless, some of the most vulnerable population base. It will also provide academic literature to help further the academic potential of many students planning on persuing graduate degrees.

Section 10

(not more than one paragraph for your response)

Please submit an abstract (clear summary) of your proposed project idea.

I am proposing starting a new student organization called the Student Social Research Group. The project this group will engage in for the purpose of this grant will be a research and response project focusing on the homeless population of Grand Forks. We will work in conjunction with The Northlands Rescue mission to conduct preliminary interviews with administrative workers from agencies currently working with the homeless in order to gather information regarding what the agency workers see as problems the homeless are facing. We will use the information gathered from the preliminary interviews to develop a mixed method tool of measurement composed of a scaled survey and open-ended questions. This will cover a range of social issues such as drug/alcohol history, medical issues, financial issues, employment history and other topics. The surveys will be administered to as many homeless individuals as possible in order to gain accurate data. After gathering and analyzing a significant amount of data we will engage in a community awareness campaign of presenting our findings to both local and regional newspapers including school papers. We will also present our published results to other media sources, agencies and city government officials in the area. Next, we will develop an intervention program in collaboration with The Mission determined by the results of our study that will help alleviate some of the most prevalent social problems faced by our community’s homeless. Additionally the Student Social Research Group will become a recognized student organization that will be able to approach a different social issue each year and continue to build the research and literary production skills of the students involved. This will increase the effectiveness of this grant by not only funding research for the current year, but also helping to found an organization that will continue to research social problems.