Community Action Research Initiative (CARI) is a small grants program that encourages and supports sociologists and communities using social science knowledge, methods, and expertise to address community-identified issues and concerns. CARI provides up to $3,000 for each project to cover direct costs associated with the community action research. Read about past winners below. Current winners can be found here.
Learn more about how to apply for a CARI grant here.
2023
Patricia Lewis, Sacred Heart University, and Vanessa Liles, PT Partners, “We All Belong Here”: Bridgeport Residents Respond to Anticipated Public Housing Demolition
In the most densely populated neighborhood of Connecticut’s largest city stands the Greene Homes – a public housing complex that has recently been selected for demolition. As with other public housing complexes around the county, public divestment from the housing authority has created an environment that some residents have called “uninhabitable”. The residents are now facing the prospect of relocation in a city with limited affordable housing. Research indicates that families who are relocated from public housing projects often find it difficult to establish the close ties they had in their former neighborhood and those who transition to housing vouchers often face higher rates of housing instability. In an effort to amplify the voices of the 720+ residents of Greene Homes, we are collaborating with PT Partners – a Black Feminist Community Organizing group led by public housing residents – to collect resident stories and present a suggested plan of action to local authorities. Specifically, we will facilitate a multi-method community-based research project intended to capture the opinions of Greene Homes residents regarding current living conditions and the anticipated demolition of their community. The findings will identify challenges and opportunities for PT Partners to build coalitions and develop advocacy strategies to ensure equitable and sufficient re-housing of residents. In addition, we seek to address the stigmatization of public housing communities in Connecticut by sharing authentic portrayals of life in the Greene Homes via public testimony venues such as city council meetings and local newspaper outlets.
Claudia Maria López, California State University, Long Beach, Aging in a Gentrifying City: The Subsided Housing Experiences of Low-Income Older Adults in Long Beach
While the population of seniors, adults 65 years of age and older, in the United States is estimated to increase from 48 million to 79 million over the next 20 years, there is a lack of housing policies and programs that focus on senior-specific needs in cities. Housing and Urban Development (HUD) vouchers for government-subsidized housing have been posited by city housing experts as the solution for addressing the housing needs of low-income older adults. However, these are temporary programs that do not create durable housing solutions. While there are descriptive statistics on the number of older adults who live in subsidized housing, there still lacks qualitative data that highlight the experiences of low-income adults in finding, living, and aging in gentrifying cities. The goal of this project is to describe and explain the housing experiences of low-income older adults who live in HUD buildings in Long Beach, California. The research project is a collaboration between the Long Beach Gray Panthers (LBGP), a non-profit organization that advocates and lobbies for senior-related policies, and House It SoCal, a research team of California State University, Long Beach faculty and students who examine the housing experiences of vulnerable communities in Southern California. The project will address a community-based problem, identified by the LBGP as a critical issue for its population of low-income older adults. During 2024, we plan to conduct sixty one-on-one semi-structured interviews with low-income adults living in HUD-subsidized buildings in downtown Long Beach. The community of older adults in subsidized housing in downtown Long Beach is predominately Black and Latinx residents who live with the threat of possible displacement and homelessness. The stress of finding housing, staying in housing, and aging in place, impacts the overall well-being of older adults. Using the framework of bioethics, we connect housing to health, showing how housing is a social determinant of health. We argue that accessibility and mobility are critical to independence, which is key to positive well-being.
Andrea Román Alfaro, University of Toronto, See It Through My Eyes: Violence and Autonomy at the Urban Margins
Interpersonal violence is not evenly distributed. Violence disproportionately affects marginalized communities. Communities affected by violence are not only poorer, but they hold a stigma that portrays them as naturally violent and irreparable. The stigma becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, especially for youth, where poverty and lack of access to resources predominate. I collaborate with a youth team from the Casa Juvenil – Puerto Nuevo (located in Callao, Peru) to challenge stigmas about shantytown residents and transform how society portrays neighbourhoods like Puerto Nuevo. Our project uses participatory research and photography to examine how young people living at the urban margins build a sense of belonging and autonomy within the constraints of violence.
The project will launch the first Puerto Nuevo Community Photo Archive, with over 200 photos collected from neighbours and taken by the Puerto Nuevo Children’s Photo Club members. Furthermore, using the photos as departure points, we will interview photo club members and organize focus groups with youth. We will use the photos and testimonies gathered from our fieldwork to design and launch a web page, publish a photo book, organize two collectively curated photo exhibits, and publish an article on youth belonging and autonomy amidst violence. We aim to bring youths’ perspectives to the general public and start a discussion about violence, survival, and joy in marginalized urban communities.
2022
Daniel R. Alvord, Oklahoma State University, The Expansion of the State Earned Income Tax Credit for Undocumented ITIN Filers in Maryland
In recent years, several states have expanded their state Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to taxpayers who file their taxes with an Individual Tax Identification Number (ITIN). In practice, this has meant an expansion of an important anti-poverty policy to undocumented immigrants in these states. This project will specifically focus on Maryland, which temporarily expanded its EITC to ITIN filers in 2021. I aim to collaborate with CASA de Maryland, the largest immigrant advocacy organization in the Mid-Atlantic region on this research. For several decades, CASA has advocated for policies that will improve the quality of life of immigrants in Maryland and other Mid-Atlantic states, as well as provide valuable services, including tax preparation, for the community. This project aims to understand what the expansion of the EITC means to ITIN holders, both in terms of material benefit, but also what it means in terms of feelings of belonging. By providing evidence of how ITIN filers think about the EITC and how they are using that money, the findings of this project will be used to help support efforts to make the expansion of the EITC to ITIN filers in Maryland permanent as well as to help advocates and policymakers in other states.
Laura A. Bray, University of Oklahoma, and Erik Kojola, Labor Network for Sustainability, Uncertain Futures: Listening to Young Workers Confronting the Climate Crisis and Economic Insecurity
Young people face compounding economic and environmental crises that are upending their futures and ability to secure decent livelihoods. Yet accelerating climate change and rising economic inequality are also shifting public attitudes and sparking social mobilization for climate and social justice. This raises possibilities for overcoming long-standing divides between the labor and environmental movements to address interconnected economic and environmental problems. To better understand if and how young workers are bridging the labor/environmental divide, this project explores young workers’ experiences and attitudes related to climate change, economic (in)security, and unions. Our multi-method research project will help the Labor Network for Sustainability (LNS)—a national organization working to unite the labor and environmental movements—develop organizing and policy strategies. We will work with a team of LNS staff and volunteers to analyze in-depth interviews and survey data centered on young peoples’ experience with environmental change and climate action at work. The CARI grant will also support virtual workshops to share the findings and facilitate conversations with labor and environmental activists. The findings will identify challenges and opportunities for LNS to build coalitions and develop advocacy strategies to advance climate justice.
Jaime McCauley and Jennifer Mokos, Coastal Carolina University, Flooded Afterlives: Cultivating Just Resilience with Community Science Partnerships
Our project focuses on community response to flooding in a rural, low-income, predominantly Black community in coastal South Carolina: Bucksport. Since 2015, Bucksport has experienced repetitive, catastrophic flooding as a direct result of increased hurricane and storm activity, and indirectly related to regional development practices that prioritize middle class and white communities. Specifically, we examine a collaboration between Bucksport community organizers, local environmental advocacy groups, and researchers from several local and regional universities, the Bucksport Community Partnership (BCP). Using methodologies related to institutional ethnography, we will explore how the BCP wholistically addresses community needs related to flood prevention and recovery. For example, the BCP engages in multiple ongoing community science projects within the Bucksport community, including flood mapping, water quality monitoring, and housing assessments. Observations and interviews highlight the ruling relations which structure the “work” of different actors within the BCP, and the extent to which these ruling relations facilitate or constrain the collaborative process of the BCP initiative. Special attention will be paid to 1) external social relations with governing bodies, disaster relief agencies, and other extra-local institutions that organize the work of flood recovery and prevention, and 2) internal social relations within the BCP and the ways in which academics, advocacy groups, and community members interact and set priorities for the group. Mapping both sets of relations and making them visible will make the BCP itself more effective and responsive to community needs, as well as providing a kind of “blueprint” for other communities who may wish to develop similar partnerships.
2021
Claudia Geist, University of Utah, Understanding Gender and Determinants of Well-Being in Families with Transgender and Non-Binary Teenage and Young Adult Children
The continued marginalization of transgender and nonbinary people remains a pressing social issue. Our research addresses the reality that many transgender and nonbinary young and young adults live a) with their parents and b) in conservative areas of the United States. We specifically focus on those with Latter-Day Saint families in Utah. Trans/nonbinary (TNB) youth and young adults who are rejected by their parents have disproportionate rates of depression and suicidality, but religiously observant families may fear that unconditionally accepting their trans/nonbinary child violates LDS teachings and threatens their child’s salvation. Our team includes a sociologist, academic psychologists, and clinical and operational staff of Encircle, a growing community organization with the motto “no sides, only love,” that serves LGBT communities through therapy services, social connections, and a place to connect. We seek to identify communication and intervention strategies that are sensitive and knowledgeable about the specific concerns posed by LDS church membership in order to provide parents with a pathway toward child acceptance and affirmation within the nuances of their faith tradition. We will identify which gendered practices and assumptions cause the most strife between TNB youth and their parents, and which gendered practices and assumptions are key to feeling safe and accepted. We hope to pinpoint which of our findings are applicable to adherents of other conservative faiths, and which of our findings are specific to the local and cultural context of Latter-Day Saints in Utah.
Jennifer Darrah, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Let’s Find our Family: Finding and Forging ties among Homeless people Evicted from Honolulu’s Waterfront
Hawai‘i has, in recent years, experienced the highest rate of homelessness per capita in the U.S. Meanwhile, the City of Honolulu has adopted what critics describe as a relatively punitive stance toward people who reside in tents and temporary shelters on sidewalks, beaches, and other public spaces. In this project, we aim to collaborate with two community-based advocacy organizations for unsheltered houseless people, Hui Aloha and Ka Po‘e o Kaka‘ako. For the past several years, these organizations have worked to build social support networks, and also develop leadership capacity, among current and formerly houseless individuals. The work of these groups has taken on added importance in Kaka‘ako, a gentrifying redevelopment district in Honolulu, where houseless people have faced targeting by police, stigmatization, and ultimately eviction from public parks and sidewalks. Displacement of houseless communities—during a global pandemic—has not only impeded community-building and advocacy efforts, but also threatened the physical safety of individuals already living on the margins. In this community-based participatory research project—a collaboration between Hui Aloha, Ka Po‘e o Kaka‘ako and university partners—we aim to understand how displacement has impacted community-building efforts among currently or formerly houseless people from Kaka‘ako. The findings of this project will be used to support the community rebuilding and advocacy efforts of our partner organizations. In addition, we seek to address the stigmatization of houseless communities by sharing nuanced and authentic portrayals of homelessness in Honolulu via public testimony in venues such as city council and neighborhood board meetings, as well as media channels.
John Krinsky and Hillary Caldwell, The City College of New York, Conceiving Community Wealth: A Collaborative Podcast Project with the New York City Community Land Initiative and Audio Interference
The New York City Community Land Initiative (NYCCLI) is a coalition begun by homeless activists, advocates for cooperative economics, and academics from the City University of New York. Now a coalition of more than two dozen organizations, NYCCLI advocates for deeply and permanently affordable housing and democratic control of land through community land trusts (CLTs). CLTs are nonprofit organizations directed by residents, neighborhood supporters, and supporters with relevant expertise to collectively own and steward land, and permanently remove it from the private market. By decommodifying land and housing, CLTs hope to stabilize neighborhoods, end real estate speculation, and enable people to thrive without being plagued by housing insecurity.
Together with Audio Interference–an activist collective of audio archivists from the larger movement-allied Interference Archive–NYCCLI members will convene, curate, and record a dialogue for a four-part podcast series. The discussions will address how, in communities beset by decades of redlining, housing disinvestment, and predatory lending, organizers and advocates for Community Land Trusts (CLTs) and social housing grapple with the fact that these models limit access to wealth-building through land and homeownership for these same communities. What are the tensions between the history and present of racialized homeownership and the present and prospective future of decommodified land and housing? How might community wealth and collective wellbeing be defined and put into practice? The podcast will both help NYCCLI disseminate the ideas that come from these dialogues and provide the occasion to have discussions that are difficult, but necessary in this work.
2020
Kwan-Lamar Blount-Hill, Borough of Manhattan Community College, Building a Model for Black Business Incubation in Response to Collective Trauma following Police Shootings of Black People: The Case of Sherman Phoenix, Milwaukee
The killing of George Floyd sparked nationwide protests of police violence against Black residents of socioeconomically disadvantaged communities as one of many examples of structural violence against people of color. Sometimes, these protests were followed by hostile encounters between civilians and police, looting and significant property damage, a cycle repeated over and again. In 2016, Sylville Smith was shot and killed by police, leading to civil unrest in the Sherman Park neighborhood of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In response, community-minded developers and community advocates established The Sherman Phoenix to house and support minority-owned business in the neighborhood. The operational assumption was two-fold: (1) A vibrant small business sector, owned by and serving local residents, could thrive if supported as a collective in a culturally affirming environment; and (2) this would improve psychological wellbeing throughout the neighborhood, bringing a sense of hope and possibility. In 2020, the Foundation of Freedom (FoF), an economic empowerment organization, partnered with Sherman Phoenix businesses. Using the CARI grant, FoF is working with Blount-Hill on a focused ethnography of the Sherman Phoenix to inform immediate supportive and fundraising activities on behalf of the Sherman Phoenix; efforts to replicate this work elsewhere; and academic and public scholarship to disseminate the findings. This project will also contribute to broader sociological discourse on collective trauma, state violence, and community wellbeing, as well as open disciplinary dialogue with research in entrepreneurship – especially social entrepreneurship – and enterprise social responsibility.
Stephanie L. Canizales, University of California at Merced, Living Legal Trauma: How Global Refugee and Health Crises Impact Service Providers’ Well-being in Los Angeles, California
By the end of 2020, Central American communities in the U.S. confronted three crises: the rise in refugee migration, and especially of unaccompanied minors, the systematic attack on asylum-seekers by the Trump administration, and the deleterious effects of the CoVID-19 pandemic on minoritized individuals and families. As researchers rightfully continue to examine the effects of these crises on asylum-seeking children and their families, the purpose of this CARI grant is to interrogate the effects the converging refugee and health crises on legal, educational, health, and social service providers lives. I have partnered with Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project, a Los Angeles, California-based organization to more clearly understand the impact of intersecting crises on the work dynamics, practices, attitudes, and overall well-being among service providers working with asylum-seeking Central American children, families, and communities. CARI Grant funds will be used to develop a personal- and community- care best practices report and resource guide for organizations and individuals working with asylum-seeking Central American children and their families in Los Angeles. This work is important for sustaining the longevity of the workforce and supporting the health and well-being of immigration and immigrant community’s service providers. Beyond this, however, this collaborative research is important for understanding how to better meet the needs of asylum-seeking children and their families who are at the center converging global crises.
Laura Heinemann and LaShaune Johnson, Creighton University, Traveling Mercies on the Road to Health: Journey-Mapping After Acute Care
In this project, we aim to bring research and action together to support Black seniors’ health and well-being. Systemic racism and the lived experience of it over a lifetime 1) place Black older adults at disproportionate risk for chronic and acute illness and injury which can lead to hospitalizations, 2) leave them facing significant barriers to accessing high-quality hospital care,and 3) generate forms of vulnerability throughout post-discharge recovery. Thus, it is clear that the path toward addressing health inequities and their accumulation over the life course must be informed by Black seniors who have journeyed through a hospitalization. Resources from the CARI grant will support a community-academic partnership with Immanuel Community Church (ICC) and Black seniors of the North Omaha community, one long impacted by redlining and disinvestment, yet with local organizations, residents, and leaders deeply committed to community-based action, justice, and equity. With ICC, we will pilot a modified journey-mapping process informed by Peak and Anderson’s (2018) Journey Scroll technique, a collaborative participatory method designed to equitably document a process, movement or program based on stakeholders’ recollections. We will use telephone interviews, seniors’ creative drawings mailed by post, journey mapping share-back events, and community discussions to learn from seniors’ recollections of a recent hospitalization. Together, we will collaborate to discern and foster the conditions that will better ensure that seniors have what they need to recover after a hospitalization, receive highest-quality care during a hospitalization, and that the larger structural landscape will be more supportive of health.
2019
Molly Clark-Barol, University of Wisconsin-Madison, for From Research to Action: Housing-Related Challenges for Women Impacted by the Criminal Justice System in Wisconsin
The goal of this project is to help identify failures in the policies, systems, and environments that structure formerly incarcerated women’s access to housing in Wisconsin, as well as organize for changes that are both evidence-based and responsive to women’s local experiences and priorities. The FREE campaign is led by women members of Ex-Incarcerated People Organizing (EXPO), an organization created in 2014 by and for people who have lived experience with the justice system. Clark-Barol is partnering with EXPO to investigate two major social trends: continued housing shortfalls despite an economic recovery and the continued growth of the population of incarcerated women, at nearly twice the rate of men. Clark-Barol and EXPO will identify the ways in which these trends are intersecting in diverse localities across Wisconsin, which may help to develop and refine related research agendas at the national level. Resources from the CARI grant will help deepen the relationship between academic partners and directly impacted women, strategically and non-hierarchically weaving together expertise derived from institutional research and that of lived experience. “Through this grant, directly impacted people will drive social change that is most critical to them as citizen sociologists engaged in community organizing,” said Clark-Barol.
Megan Holland and Shelley Kimelberg, University at Buffalo, for Learning the Lay of the Land: Transition Experiences at High and Low Selectivity Colleges Among Disadvantaged Students
Students from traditionally underrepresented groups—including racial minorities, students from low-income families, and first-generation students—face many challenges in transitioning to and persisting in higher education, such as lack of academic preparation, difficulty with social integration, and financial constraints. However, one important finding in the research that seeks to address these challenges is that some pre-college experiences may smooth the transition for such students. In their project, Holland and Kimelberg are partnering with a pipeline program that provides academic enrichment as well as social and cultural supports to assist high-achieving, low-income students of color prepare for college preparatory high schools. Through in-depth interviews with the program’s alumni, the project aims to better understand students’ experiences transitioning to different types of postsecondary institutions, from Ivy League universities to community colleges, to inform the development of a new piece of the pipeline program that will serve students as they make the high school-to-college transition. This increased understanding will help the pipeline program target resources to better support students in the transition to college. “The CARI funds will enable us to expand the sample of students we interview and our research team of graduate students,” Holland noted.
Cameron T. Whitley, Western Washington University and Ashley Colby, Rizoma Field School, for Biotecture for Sustainable Futures: The Importance of Off-Grid Architecture in the Face of Extreme Climate Change Risk in Colonia, Uruguay
The goal of this project is to see how sustainable development is created and supported by individuals as well as social and political organizations in rural and developing areas. It looks at the use and impact of Earthship Biotecture (an off-grid architectural phenomenon developed in the 1970s) as a sustainable practice that is being integrated in high-risk climate change areas. Whitley and Colby will conduct interviews with key informants concerning their interest in the Earthship Biotecture movement, how best to engage community partners, and how to promote policies that support sustainable off-grid development. They will create a report that the Rizoma Field School (RFS), a community organization in Uruguay, will share with local community members and government officials. Their goal is to document the importance of this movement for other scholars. According to Whitley, “what we are doing with this is more than research, it is about creating networks of knowledge that can be used to benefit individuals across nations in the face of grave environmental problems.” Colby adds that “the CARI grant will help RFS to advance a research agenda that is focused on sustainability in the region, with the ultimate goal of providing usable information to support similar initiatives.”
2018
Anjuli Fahlberg, Tufts University, for The Social Costs of Urban Violence: A Community-Based Research Collaborative in Rio de Janeiro’s Most Dangerous Favela
The goal of this project is to disseminate the findings of a community-led survey project titled “Building Together” (Construindo Juntos), launched in 2017, which documented the social costs of public insecurity on favela residents in Rio de Janeiro. The survey was administered in the City of God, a favela (low-income urban area) of 60,000 people where local drug lords and military police compete for territorial control. The project’s main aims: 1) To deepen the public’s understanding about the effects of urban violence on favelas by accounting for the social costs of armed conflict, such as regular school closures, mental health issues, missed work due to bus cancellations, and neglected infrastructure; 2) To provide activists working in and on behalf of favelas with statistical data they need to make explicit demands for better public security policies and increased government investments in social development and infrastructure; and 3) To provide researchers of urban violence in and beyond Rio de Janeiro with a model for collaborative research that can be employed in other favelas. This project will inform debates on Brazil’s public security policies, promote the leadership of favela residents in producing and disseminating sociological knowledge, and deepen understanding of the social costs of urban violence.
Kimberly Huyser, University of New Mexico, for Building Data Literacy and Research Capacity to Identify the American Indian and Alaska Native Elder Population and Their Needs
The goal of this project is to build the data literacy and social research capacity of the National Indian Council on Aging (NICOA). It will equip NICOA with the ability to use its own data or existing federal data to advocate for American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) elders and for aging policy. The goal of building the social research capacity of NICOA will be met through a series of workshops with NICOA staff, with two primary goals—to familiarize NICOA staff and board with data and statistics and to build research design skills. Given the diversity within AI/AN peoples, it is important that AI/AN communities and organizations are active in the creation of knowledge (e.g., how and who data collected and ensuring the AI/AN peoples are represented in studies and reports). It is also important that they are active in identifying the unique needs of AI/AN peoples using their own data and existing data. Building research capacity using sociology-based research methods will empower NICOA to influence the ways in which data are collected on AI/AN elders and also provide accountability to federal and local agencies. According to Huyser, the CARI grant “will also allow us to increase access to research skills and lexicon among AI/AN people themselves so that they have increased opportunity to participate in research and knowledge creation occurring in their communities.”
Erica Morrell, Middlebury College, for Environmental Contamination and Lactation (ECL) Project
Since the Flint water crisis, incidences of lead-contaminated drinking water are coming to light in numerous American cities. This includes Milwaukee, where health officials have provided no guidelines on whether women who have consumed lead-contaminated drinking water should cease breastfeeding and/or what families should do if they are preparing bottles of infant formula. The goal of this project is to empower at-risk communities in achieving safe infant feeding during lead-contaminated drinking water crises. Morrell is partnering with the African American Breastfeeding Network to launch the current phase of the Environmental Contamination and Lactation (ECL) project in Milwaukee, where the Network has been running community projects for over 10 years. The ECL includes five main steps: 1) Survey low-income, African American pregnant, breastfeeding, and formula-feeding families on their current knowledge and desire to learn about lead-contaminated drinking water and young childhood feeding; 2) Use survey results to help develop a culturally appropriate educational tool for safe childhood feeding; 3) Train community health workers to implement this educational tool; 4) Assist community health workers to implement this educational tool; and 5) Assess the educational tool’s efficacy. “With the grant, we are better equipped to underscore the important link between water and infant food systems, and to uplift community work on these issues to advance justice throughout Milwaukee and beyond,” said Morrell.
2017
Janet Lorenzen, Willamette University, for Strengthening Community Action on Climate Change: Applying Sociological Research to Legislative Strategies in Oregon
This project is already in its second stage, concentrating on climate action policies at the state level and continuing Lorenzen’s research in the study of processes of social change, strategic action, and framing. Between 2015 and 2017, Lorenzen and her team conducted 58 interviews about climate policy with Oregon legislators, state legislature staff members, professional lobbyists, and environmental group leaders. The ASA CARI Grant enables Lorenzen to hire two undergraduate research assistants to help code the interview data and co-author a report for the Oregon League of Conservation Voters (OLCV)–her community partner organization. Participation in this project offers students hands-on research experience that resonates with their environmental concerns and career interests. The co-authored report for OLCV outlines recommendations for future tactics, strategic framing, and maintaining a strong coalition of groups including unions, rural environmental groups, and social/environmental justice groups. In the end, the report will serve as a resource to inform future legislative strategies on cap and trade, build OLCV’s capacity to address legislative setbacks, and find common ground with more moderate legislators. OLCV is a non-partisan organization whose goals include passing laws to protect Oregon’s environmental legacy and holding elected officials accountable for decisions that affect the environment.
Julia Waity, University of North Carolina-Wilmington, for Creating a Local Food Certification Program in the Greater Wilmington NC Region
This project’s overarching goal is to determine the wider feasibility of, and consumer desire for, a local food certification program in Greater Wilmington. There has been a push towards local food consumption across multiple sectors for its environmental and economic benefits to the local region, as well as health benefits for consumers. However, the definition of local food varies greatly, and this discrepancy can lead to confusion among consumers as to the true source of their food. Waity’s team is nearing completion of the data collection phase (conducting interviews and focus groups) of their project. So far, they have been able to talk with consumers as well as chefs, farmers, and grocers about their views on a local food label. After finishing data collection, they will perform an analysis and write a report on their findings. They plan to present these findings at their region’s annual local food conference in February 2018, which is being co-organized with the partner organization for this project, the Cape Fear Food Council (CFFC). CFFC is a grassroots organization advocating for policies through collaborative efforts to strengthen the local food system. Both investigators are using their awards to “address community-identified issues and concerns,” the goal of the CARI grants. “None of this research would have been possible without the assistance from the CARI grant,” said Waity. “Not only has it given us the resources to undertake this research, but the fact that the project has received grant funding from a national organization has also given the project addition.
2016
Amanda Cheong, Princeton University, with Latin American Legal Defense and Education Fund
The project, “Citizenship from the Grassroots: Local Identity Cards, Integration, and Access to Mainstream Institutions among Undocumented Immigrants in Mercer County,” will run a series of focus groups to assess the impacts of the Mercer County Area Community Identity Card Program on the social, economic, and civic integration of undocumented immigrants. In recent years, municipal identity card initiatives have launched across the U.S. as a local-level response to federal immigration policies. The goal of the project is to: 1) produce evaluative evidence for policymakers and civil society stakeholders about the individual and community-level impacts of the ID card program; 2) contribute theoretically and empirically to the study of immigrant-state relations below the federal level; and 3) highlight the voices, challenges, and everyday contributions of undocumented immigrants within their local communities in a time of high anti-immigrant sentiment and mass deportations.
Stephanie A. Malin, Colorado State University, with Rocky Flats Downwinders
This project will provide financial and research support to the Rocky Flats Downwinders to enhance their capacity to conduct a community-based health study examining community-wide exposure to radioactive contamination from the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant. The project has two main goals: 1) to assist Rocky Flats Downwinders in executing their health study and collect oral histories of residents; and 2) to build a support network for Rocky Flats Downwinders by building regional research capacity and by cultivating relevant collaborations among northern Colorado social scientists and public health practitioners. This research will be based on community needs and assessments, from research design to interviewing and data analysis.
Collin W. Mueller, Duke University, with Alliance Medical Ministry, Raleigh, North Carolina
With the project “Addressing Unmet Health Needs and Understanding Social and Economic Hardships among Uninsured Residents of a Southern City,” Mueller aims to enhance the quality of health-promoting resources provided to uninsured residents of North Carolina by Alliance Medical Ministry (AMM), a faith-based primary care clinic in Raleigh’s healthcare safety net. The project will closely examine how uninsured community members take on strategies to overcome everyday hardships (e.g., food insecurity, unreliable transportation), and how healthcare access barriers are experienced within and across patients’ kinship networks. In-depth qualitative interviews in conjunction with survey and medical record data will be systematically analyzed using inductive and geospatial modeling techniques. These efforts will enable the researchers to better understand patients’ perspectives and map social conditions of interest to improving AMM’s delivery of healthcare and health-promoting resources.
Tracy Perkins, Howard University, with Greenaction for Health and Environmental Justice
With her project, “Digital Ward Valley: Nuclear Waste, Solar Farms and the Fight to Protect Tribal Lands,” Perkins seeks to demonstrate how scholarly research involving campus-community collaboration can be combined with the field of digital sociology. Specifically, it focuses on construction of an interactive digital archive to document the success of a decade-long campaign in the 1990s against a nuclear waste landfill in California’s Mojave Desert. The project focuses on participation by the Colorado River Native Nations Alliance, consisting of the Fort Mojave, Chemehuevi, Colorado River, Quechan, and Cocopah First Nations. Poor people and people of color have an important role to play in the history of American environmentalism, but their version is largely absent from the popular understanding of the U.S. environmental movement. The goal is to make the Ward Valley campaign visible through storytelling that is widely accessible to a broad audience.
Kevin Riley, UCLA Labor Occupational Safety and Health Program, with National Day Labor Organizing Network
The project, “Documenting the Injury Experiences of Day Laborers in Residential Work Settings,” will investigate the injury experiences of day laborers working in residential settings and their efforts to access compensation from employers when work-related injuries occur. Laborers hired by homeowners and residential contractors are often at elevated risk for occupational injury, yet few are able to secure compensation when work-related injuries result in lost work time and/or the need for medical attention. The grant will support the collection and analysis of qualitative data from 25–30 day laborers regarding their experiences with work-related injuries, their efforts to access compensation from employers, and the impact of work injuries on themselves and their families. The findings will lay the groundwork for a subsequent survey of day laborers throughout California.
Daisy Rooks, University of Montana, with Missoula Area Central Labor Council
In “Identifying ‘Best Practices’ in Rural Labor-Environmental Coalitions,” Rooks has partnered with the Missoula Area Central Labor Council (MACLC), an organization that represents workers and their unions in four counties in Western Montana. She will conduct qualitative case studies of three labor-environmental coalitions in the Intermountain West and Great Plains and conduct a brief literature review of research on “best practices” in labor-environmental coalitions. After identifying some of the barriers to forming these coalitions, and the challenges of sustaining them, she will share her findings with MACLC via two presentations and a technical report.
Jason Eton Scott, University of California, Berkeley, with College Track
With the project, “Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Socio-emotional Learning Intervention in an After-School Setting,” Scott will partner with College Track in Oakland, CA, which supports students through every crucial step of high school and college through college graduation. The organization runs out-of-school time interventions for high school and college students from low-income families, with the goal of improving students’ educational outcomes, particularly college graduation rates. Scott’s work entails designing and conducting quasi-experiments and experiments, when possible, to measure the impact of interventions conducted by the organization.
Elena Shih, Brown University, and Bella Robinson, Executive Director, with COYOTE Rhode Island
The project, “Policing Modern Day Slavery: Sex Work and the Carceral State in Rhode Island,” will examine the efficacy of legal initiatives to combat modern-day slavery. Prior to 2009, Rhode Island was one of two states in the U.S. to have legalized indoor prostitution. Following pressure from anti-trafficking advocacy groups, the state re-criminalized prostitution to protecting victims of sexual exploitation. This study focuses primarily on the impact of the 2009 re-criminalization on Rhode Island sex workers and asks: How have contemporary anti-trafficking efforts generated new forms of policing? How do they build off existing policing of racial and sexual minorities and immigrant communities? And how has re-criminalization impacted the levels of violence and exploitation that sex workers experience? The CARI grant will support in-depth follow-up interviews with prior survey respondents and public dissemination of completed research findings.
2015
Ian Breckenridge-Jackson, University of California, Riverside, with The Lower Ninth Ward Living Museum
Nearly a decade after Hurricane Katrina, less than one in four residents have been able to return to New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, a neighborhood that continues to exist between resilience and social death. Using focus groups, the project will assess what residents of the Lower Ninth Ward think is important about the neighborhood and its history, perceptions of threats 10 years after Katrina, challenges to rebuilding the neighborhood in a socially just way, and their hopes, desires, and dreams for the future of the neighborhood. The final products include a booklet in which focus group data will be interwoven with children’s art and poetry. It will be distributed to local residents, political leaders, and policymakers. A community mural inspired by the findings and produced by a local artist in collaboration with neighborhood children will also be created for the Lower Ninth Ward Living Museum.
Paul Draus, University of Michigan-Dearborn, with Greening of Detroit
Draus has partnered with the Greening of Detroit to work on a project called “Green Infrastructure and Social Equity: Examining Community Engagement and Risk Communication Strategies Related to Environmental Remediation in Southwest Detroit.” Using focus groups and individual interviews, Draus will explore uses and definitions of landscape employed by local residents in Detroit neighborhoods that have been targeted for green infrastructure and remediation efforts. The findings will be used to inform future engagement efforts related to landscape-based remediation in environmentally stressed areas.
Shelley McDonough Kimelberg, University at Buffalo-SUNY, with Explore & More
Kimelberg will work with Explore & More, an established children’s museum in Western New York, on a project titled “Understanding the Barriers to Museum Access and Use for Disadvantaged Populations.” The museum is planning to move its facility from a predominantly white, affluent suburb to a new location in downtown Buffalo, a racially diverse city with a high poverty rate, in 2016. The study will make use of in-depth interviews to explore how low-income residents, racial minorities, and members of the refugee community perceive Explore & More, in an effort to help the museum better reach and serve those families and children who stand to benefit most from its educational enrichment programming.
KuoRay Mao, Colorado State University-Fort Collins, with Gansu “Green Camel Bell” Environment and Development Center, China
Mao will work on a pilot project tiled, “Empowering Women to Sustain Community-based Waste Management and Water Conservation in Northwestern Rural China.” The dumping of hazardous wastes in rural China has created severe watershed pollution and caused significant environmental health issues. Working with the Gansu Green Camel Bell Environment and Development Center, this project will study how collaborations between local governments and community stakeholders influence the implementation of environmental laws in an authoritarian regime. The interdisciplinary research team will conduct external and community evaluations of the pilot’s efficacy before scaling the model to all villages sampled by the Loess Health Study, a 15-year (2013–2028) longitudinal study examining the interplay between economic development, environmental conservation, and health outcomes of 3,800 rural households in northwestern China.
Beth Frankel Merenstein, Central Connecticut State University, with Middlesex County Coalition on Housing and Homelessness, as part of the Middlesex-Meriden-Wallingford CAN (Coordinated Access Network)
Put into practice in November 2014, the Middlesex-Meriden-Wallingford CAN created a single point of entry (2-1-1) for people needing prevention, housing, or other services to gain stable housing. Working together with the community providers, the clients who accessed this network, and the directors of the various programs, the project, “Front Door Policy: How well does it work?,” will conduct an evaluation to determine whether the CAN is truly providing more efficient homelessness systems and assistance.
Scott Patrick Murphy, University of South Florida, with Casa Chiapas Tampa
Casa Chiapas Tampa developed the Indigenous Maya Immigration Conference Series (IMICS) intervention in response to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy in order to clarify changing immigration policies and procedures, share best practices to avoid scams, and to provide nuanced, particularistic one-on-one assistance to Latina/o immigrants in the greater Tampa Bay area. Drawing upon ethnographic fieldwork, focus group interviews, and survey data, this case study will evaluate the efficacy of the IMICS intervention. The work seeks to explain how IMICS participants navigate immigration policy and avoid scams in everyday life in order to illuminate practical pathways to citizenship.
Ray Von Robertson, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, with Peace for MLK
The Peace for MLK organization will incorporate collaborative partnerships between community residents of Lafayette’s Northside district and other local stakeholders in this community. In addition, Peace for MLK has ties to other organizations and offices in greater Lafayette. In this study, titled “African American Attitudes on Policing in Lafayette, LA,” Robertson will conduct 60-minute in-depth interviews with 40 African American residents of Lafayette, LA, in order to gauge their general attitudes toward police, the use of excessive force by police, and the implications of such force for future relations.
Kathleen Sexsmith, Cornell University, with Worker Justice Center of New York (WJCNY)
Kathleen Sexsmith will partner with WJCNY to assess farm labor organizing efforts in the New York dairy industry. WJCNY helps coordinate the “Comité Primero de Mayo,” a statewide advocacy and solidarity network comprised of Mexican and Central American-origin dairy farmworkers. She will conduct interviews and workshops with Comité members to analyze and help design strategies for farmworker empowerment and organizing.
Jennifer Sherman, Washington State University, with The Cove, Twisp, Washington
This qualitative and ethnographic research, “Amenity Tourism and Inequality in Rural Washington,” will investigate the impacts of amenity tourism on a rural community whose economy has transitioned. The location and landscape provided the means for economic reinvention after natural resource-based industries declined, but not without social costs. The research will explore the experiences of those struggling to make a living in low-paid, mostly service-sector jobs as well as for less marginal residents for whom the community offers opportunities that help offset financial struggles. The project seeks to better understand the barriers to social mobility that arise or are exacerbated with tourism-based rural development and to identify which poverty alleviation strategies are effective within a deeply stratified, geographically isolated rural community.
2014
Tony Cheng, Yale University, will work with StreetSafe Bridgeport on “Keeping the StreetSafe: Focused Reduction of Youth Violence in Bridgeport, CT.” He will examine a new approach to reduce gun and gang violence using peer outreach workers (OWs) in place of law enforcement. “By developing legitimacy and trust with the community, OWs simultaneously re-direct youth into more productive programs and gather information about fluid group conflicts.” Tony hopes to find that the use of street outreach work is an effective strategy for lessening violence and to determine whether OWs could help other U.S. cities similar to Bridgeport.
Gloria Gonzalez, University of Maryland-College Park, will help the National Hispana Leadership Institute’s Executive Leadership Program (ELP) identify how Latina leaders are impacting their communities. Women who complete the ELP are responsible for creating a leadership program that positively affects their communities. Gloria will be conducting an evaluation of how the leadership projects affect the community long term.
Maryann Mason, Northwestern University, has partnered with Beyond the Ball (BTB), a youth athletics and character development program in the Little Village community in Chicago. With the help of the community, BTB has founded a safe space for activity between two gang groups. Since its founding, BTB has seen less gang-related crime. With the help of community members Maryann will develop a community survey on community efficacy, perceptions of the community safety environment, and physical activity behaviors and participation in community events. She aims to evaluate BTB’s to efforts to change their community.
Jennifer Randles, California State University-Fresno, and the Fresno POPS (Proving Our Parenting Skills) program are partnering to assess how “fatherhood programs influence men’s views of themselves as responsible parents, their relationships with their children and their children’s mothers, and their economic opportunities.” Jennifer began her research this past summer as a participant observer at four sites that offer POPS parenting classes with the goal of identifying paternal identity and involvement.
Melissa M. Sloan and Jane Roberts, University of South Florida-Sarasota-Manatee, will work with the Family Safety Alliance, a local organization devoted to engaging the community in the oversight and improvement of the local child welfare system. Their project goal is to “identify gaps, strengths, and weaknesses in the system of care for families and children of Sarasota, Manatee, and DeSoto Counties in the state of Florida in order to strengthen community partnerships.”
Rebecca L. Som Castellano, Boise State University, has partnered with the Idaho Hunger Relief Task Force to assess the food security concerns and needs of the Duck Valley Tribal Community. Rebecca will collaborate with the Duck Valley Tribal Community to develop and conduct surveys, interviews, and focus groups with the goal of designing and implementing pro-grams to help improve community food security.
Elizabeth L. Sweet and Donna Marie Peters, Temple University, will use their funding to work on a project titled “Migrant Women’s Experience of Gender Violence in the New Latino Diaspora.” Collaborating with the Women’s Center of Montgomery County, Elizabeth and Donna set out to answer “How do migrant women experience gender violence in the New Latino Diaspora?” They hope to provide the Women’s Center with insight on migrant women’s experiences with gender violence in their communities as part of their migration experience.
Leslie K. Wang, University of Massachusetts-Boston, seeks to “reduce mental health dis-parities that are often linked to socioeconomic inequality among recently-arrived Asian immigrant groups.” Working with the Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center (BCNC), Leslie will use her findings from focus groups to “develop, refine, and implement an approach known as ‘Family Connectors,’ a family-centered, community-based coordinated care system that is being established at BCNC.”
2013
Claudia Chaufan, University of California-San Francisco, will evaluate an on-site food-garden in an early childhood education program, North Bay Children’s Center, which caters to underserved families in Northern California. Poor nutrition is one of our country’s largest problems and is responsible for disease and health inequalities. Unhealthy eating habits develop at a younger age and are highly influenced by family eating practices. Communities across the country have responded by supporting smaller, farmer-owned and run farms. These urban farms have provided healthier food programs in schools and encourage a healthier lifestyle. Chaufan’s study will examine how participation in the program impacts families’ eating practices and overall quality of life as well as address how incorporating food gardening impacts curriculum development in early childhood education. The project seeks to identify interventions and strategies that improve parent and community engagement with the program and food security in participating communities and to develop recommendations that enhance the overreaching goal of the organization.
Shane Lachtman, University of California-Los Angeles, received funding to examine how to increase adoption of shelter animals that might otherwise be euthanized. His project, “In Search of Answers and Solutions: Why Do Americans Love Animals and Stay Away from Shelters.” The organization he will work with, the Los Angeles Animal Alliance, aims to examine the capacity, experiences, successes, and pathways local shelters have when engaging the public. Lachtman will research how animal shelters encourage the public to adopt, volunteer, and donate and the impact of their various methods. To examine community involvement, he will investigate the roles and relationships of shelter staff, programs, communities, promotions, recruiting, volunteering, and fundraising practices. The Animal Alliance, which consists of 30 Southern Californian shelters, seeks to connect ordinary people and local shelters as well as facilitate high-quality opportunities for people to adopt, volunteer, and donate to their local shelter.
Carl Milofsky, Bucknell University, will evaluate an athletic field renovation project at the Central Columbia School District in central Pennsylvania. The athletic field will give residents access to promote community health. With information being gathered through a community-wide health assessment that will help compare changes in community health over time, Milofsky will address the significance of the remolded and opened athletic fields. He will conduct his evaluation with the help of the Central Susquehanna Community Foundation. The Central Columbia School District serves students from K-12th grade in three small towns. Central Pennsylvania has been plagued with obesity, and supporting exercise is crucial for adolescents of the Central Columbia School District. The study will include students taking surveys and interviewing community members. The students will ask questions about the health issues, problems the community has faces and the general quality of life. Milofsky’s research is critical in helping small communities—long overshadowed by the problems of larger towns and cities— overcome unhealthy lifestyles.
Caitlin Patler, University of California-Los Angles, will assess the impacts of the Department of Homeland Security’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) immigration program, which was implemented by President Obama in 2012. Patler, along with Dream Team Los Angeles (DTLA), will examine the DACA’s impact on the educational and employment trajectories, community involvement, healthcare access, and psychological well-being of undocumented immigrant young adults in California. The DACA’s goal is to provide programs for eligible, undocumented immigrant youth and provides a two-year reprieve from deportation that includes work authorization, but no path to citizenship. Patler and the DTLA will evaluate whether the lives of undocumented immigrant young adults are benefited through undocumented young adults’ access to education, employment, healthcare, and community involvement. Respondents will answer questions about the families who receive work permits, who applied for DACA, and the interpersonal and psychological impacts of their legal status. With nearly 5 million undocumented children and young adults in the United States, the study will answer many crucial questions surrounding the uncertainty of a large segment of America’s immigrant population.
Frank Ridzi and Matthew Loveland, Le Moyne College, believe that kindergarten readiness is a top priority in Syracuse, NY. The County spends $19 million annually to subsidize childcare for low-income families, but currently only about half of children are assessed as “ready” upon entering kindergarten. Loveland and Ridzi are working with a broad coalition of partners (The Literacy Coalition of Onondaga County) that includes the county government and city school district. The goal of their project is to build on the social capital that this group has been accumulating to move the community toward greater data sharing in a manner that both respects privacy and enables more effective and efficient use of resources. This project would be a first step for the community in the direction of data sharing by collaboratively working to explore what types of childcare in the community best prepare children for school.
Mark Sherry, The University of Toledo, will explore the conditions of labor camps and conduct interviews with farm workers. The research will further examine how the work is poorly paid and often unsafe. Sherry raises address whether there is worker exploitation occurring and if workplace safety regulations are being violated. The grant will support five undergraduate and a graduate internship with the Farm Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC). Sherry’s research has four goals: (1) To allow the students to explore the abuses and indignities farm workers experience. (2) To explore the social movement strategies adopted by farm workers in response to these conditions. (3) To examine the responses of major manufacturers such as Reynolds Tobacco to the campaigns of the workers. (4) To give the students (both undergraduate and graduate) a chance to do detailed ethnographic fieldwork, with the possibility for publications.
Dale Willits, California State University-Bakersfield, will evaluate the Community Action Partnership of Kern (CAPK), a county in California’s Central-Valley. Willits’ plan is to develop an evaluation survey that can be used to measure the effectiveness of their resource fair program. The second aspect of the study is to provide a pilot evaluation of the program, which will “consist of administering surveys to CAPK clients attending the resource fair sessions,” Willits explained. The respondents will be interviewed before and after attending the resource fair, which is designed to connect those who are disadvantaged with resources available within their community. The CAPK is also a valuable means of providing health information, job training services, and assistance accessing state and federal assistance programs. With Willits’ research, the effectiveness of the CAPK’s methods can be reviewed and examined and reformed if necessary.
2012
Natalie Boero, Sang Hea Kil, and Carlos Garcia, San Jose State University, will implement their project, “Documenting Health Capital, Understanding Health Literacy: Exploring Health-Seeking Practices among Mexican American Immigrants in Silicon Valley,” through work with the Latino community, Latinas Contra Cancer (LCC). LCC was founded to address the void in culturally and linguistically sensitive programs that meet the healthcare needs of Latino and Latinas around issues of cancer; it targets underserved, low-income, Spanish-speaking individuals and families. The CARI Grant will support phase two of their research. Their research goals are to explore the role of health capital in health practices, clinical interactions, and medical decision making of Mexican-origin immigrants in the Silicon Valley with cancer. The team hopes that their research “can be used directly by health care professionals in their interactions with immigrant patients as well as to come up with culturally sensitive ways to help immigrants better navigate the health care system and feel empowered in their interactions with health care professionals.”
Brianne Dávila, Willamette University, will collaborate with Willamette Academy, a college outreach program housed at Willamette University for her community project, “Overcoming Adversity: Fostering Resiliency through Education.” The Academy serves a group of low-income students in grades 8-12 from the Salem-Keizer School District. The college preparatory program is committed to serving students that are underrepresented in higher education. The program provides year-round tutoring, enrichment programs with topics such as financial aid and SAT prep. The Academy also has programs to help families support their children in their preparation for college. Currently in phase one of the research, Davila is focusing on developing a long-term plan for systematic data collection and an evaluation process through a comprehensive literature review and collection of data from public school students in Oregon, the Salem-Keizer School District, and Willamette Academy. The second phase will consist of ethnographic observations during the 2012 Summer Academy program. This observation will provide insight on how to conduct the interviews. Davila and Willamette Academy seek to develop an internal evaluation report, conference presentations, and a journal article from the project.
Emily Drew, Willamette University, will work with CAUSA on her project, “Under One Roof: Studying the Effects of Immigration Policy for Mixed-Status Families in Oregon”. Founded in 1995 by farm workers, immigrants, and allies, CAUSA is the largest Latino rights and advocacy organization in the Northwest. CAUSA’s mission is to organize, educate, and mobilize to build power among the immigrant community. Drew and her team of two undergraduates will conduct in-depth interviews with community members who have seen first-hand the effects of anti-immigrant policies. CAUSA’s major campaigns include support for tuition equity, access to driver’s licenses for undocumented workers, ending the deportation and separation of Latino families, implementing prosecutorial discretion, LGBTQ and marriage equality, and “Breaking the chain” between local law enforcement and immigration/customs enforcement. The team’s goal is to produce a collection of articles that CAUSA could use to continue their work for immigrant justice and strengthen CAUSA’s internal capacity to organize for extending rights to all residents of Oregon.
Valerie Leiter, Simmons College, will continue her work with the Neighborhood Access Group (NAG) in Boston. The group is a non-profit that fights for full access to all sidewalks and streets for the community. Leiter’s project will look at the city’s sidewalk accessibility. Most known for their fight against brick sidewalks that replaced functional concrete on Huntington Avenue in 2003-04, for which they were successful, NGA organizes protests and educational events to facilitate individual’s access to their communities. NAG has collected initial data from its members, which documented member accessibility issues. NAG has used this date to inform the public about how brick sidewalks diminish access and make life more difficult not only for those with mobility issues but for people who are blind and even people with strollers. Even with their success with the Huntington Avenue project, NAG needs more comprehensive data on city-wide sidewalk accessibility. With the help of an undergraduate and research assistants, Leiter’s project will collect this data—providing the necessary tools for NAG to prioritize its next steps in working with the city to improve physical accessibility on public walkways.
Gretchen Purser, Maxwell School of Syracuse University, will work with the Worker’s Center of Central New York for her project, “The Formerly Incarcerated, Worker Centers and the Struggle for Jobs with Justice.” The Worker’s Center is a community-based organization focused on the problems facing marginalized, low-wage workers in the greater Syracuse area and aims to build collective power through education. The Worker’s Center offers information and trainings related to worker’s rights and occupational health and safety as well as offering legal assistant in matters relating to employment and immigration. Teamed with members and leaders of the Worker’s Center, Purser will conduct in-depth interviews with formally incarcerated community members. Purser and the Worker’s Center intend to produce a report and a set of podcasts, by recording the interviews, to help identify how the center can begin to address the challenges in workplace justice. The center plans to expand its advocacy efforts with the findings.
Robert Silverman, University of Buffalo, will work with Housing Opportunity Made Equal (HOME) in evaluating and implementing the City of Buffalo’s Al report. The Al report identifies impediments to fair housing and promotes the Fair Housing Act’s goal. HOME is a non-profit, membership-based civil rights organization based in western New York. The organization’s mission is to “promote the value of diversity and to ensure the people of western New York an equal opportunity to live in the housing and communities of their choice—through education, advocacy, enforcement of fair housing laws, and the creation of housing opportunities.” HOME provides comprehensive services to victims of housing discrimination. Silverman and HOME have set four goals for this project: to enhance the quality of evaluation implemented by HOME, to use a graduate student assistantship to identify and train future generations of fair housing scholars and advocates, to affirmatively further fair housing in Buffalo, and to turn the results into academic products.
2011
Beth Tarasawa, St. Norbert College, will work with The Giving Tree Pantry of Green Bay, WI. The Giving Tree works to serve families facing economic challenges with the support of the Howard-Suamico School District. Established in 2008, the organization offers food, personal care items, school supplies, and winter apparel, in addition to assisting families with summer school and transportation fees. The Giving Tree works to provide their students with the confidence to excel academically and to assist them in becoming productive citizens of the community. With the help of Tarasawa, the school district hopes to assess how funded students perform compared to their non-funded peers. Working with Tarasawa, the Howard-Suamico School District will provide her with de-identified student demographic data matched with test performance measures for the spring 2009 and fall 2010 semesters. She will then use these data to study pantry-funded students who attend summer school to similar socioeconomic students who did not; socioeconomic advantaged students who attended summer school to those who did not. The Howard-Suamico School District hopes, with the outcome of this study, to connect with community businesses and foundations for additional support and funding for their programs.
Christopher Stapel, University of Kentucky, will be working with his home state through collaboration with the Chicago-based organization, Illinois Safe Schools Alliance in a project titled the “Rural LGBTQ Youth Project.” The project’s aim is to assist youth and their advocates in creating safe environments for rural gay youth. The Alliance is the only organization of its kind serving Illinois and its mission is to “promote safety, support and healthy development for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and questioning youth (LGBTQ), in Illinois schools and communities, through advocacy, education, youth organizing and research.” Stapel will be conducting a research-based project that will serve the advocacy, education, and organizing functions of the Illinois Safe School Alliance by updating a previous manual he had written, No Longer Alone, which will provide rural-specific information and practices as well as establishing a website that will be available as an additional resource to a larger LGBTQ youth population.
Lillian Brislen, University of Kentucky, will work with the Community Farm Alliance (CFA) and a team of graduate students in Rural Sociology and undergraduate students in Sustainable Agriculture (SAG) programs. The team will be conducting a needs assessment project for young and beginning farmers in Kentucky. CFA was founded during the farm crisis of the 1980s, developing into a 1,500-member, statewide non-profit organization. Their mission is to “organize and encourage cooperation among farmers, rural, and urban citizens through leadership development and grassroots democratic processes; to ensure an essential, prosperous place for family-scale agriculture in our economies and communities.” Brislen’s research will consist of a web-based survey and four listening sessions in different locations around the state. From these components, the team will collect a variety of demographic data as well as other information regarding farming practices and perceived needs and obstacles. Brislen’s research will directly support the development of the Agriculture Legacy Initiative, a program recently begun by CFA to bring together CFA’s experience, leadership, and organizational networks to ensure that programs and policies are informed by sound data and a broad range of community input.
Stephanie Hartwell, University of Massachusetts-Boston, will work with the Louis D. Brown Peace Institute (LDBPI), a community-based organization in Boston. LDBPI was established in 1994 responding to the 1993 murder of teenager Louis D. Brown who was a victim of a gang related shooting on his way to a Teens Against Gang Violence meeting. Since the establishment of LDBPI, the organization has been dedicated to peaceful restorative justice and building sustainable peace in the community. It is largely staffed by the family members of homicide victims. LDBPI is the primary resource in the Boston area helping the families of homicides, serving 98% of the 50-90 murders that occur annually. Hartwell’s project involves the dissemination of the LDBPI’s “Burial and Resource Guide” and a corresponding evaluation. The burial guide is a resource for those affected by the victims’ untimely death. Hartwell’s goal is to employ sociological expertise and technical assistance in the dissemination and implementation of the burial guide through training and a comprehensive and iterative evaluation.
2010
At Indiana University, Jack K. Martin, Kathleen Oberlin, and Oren Pizmony-Levy are collaborating with the organization Volunteers in Medicine of Monroe and Owen Counties to explore the social barriers that prevent residents of these counties from utilizing free health care services. Volunteers in Medicine (VIM) is a non-profit organization that was established in Bloomington, IN, in 2007. This community-run organization provides medical care for those without health insurance and health education to help people monitor and maintain their health. Despite its availability, only 3,000 people have taken advantage of the free medical care. Using surveys and open-ended interviews, this project aims to identify socio-demographic background information on current clients; determine social networks and support; collect health history and health needs; and do an evaluation of the services offered by VIM. The interviews will allow further investigation about stigma, subjective experiences, and other social barriers that may explain the clinic’s patterns of utilization. The PIs hope to increase VIM’s client base.
Janice Rienerth, Appalachian State University, will work with the North Carolina branch of Guardian ad Litem/Court Appointed Special Advocate (GAL/CASA) program is an organization that recruits volunteers to represent abused, neglected, and dependent children in juvenile court. Since 1983, they have helped many children remain safe while the juvenile system addresses what solution would be in their best interest. Last year they had 4,767 trained volunteers working with 17,189 children who were in court because “a petition had been filed stating they were abused or neglected.” Through this project, Rienerth will do a program evaluation focusing on issues of recruitment, training, and retention of volunteers. Having a consistent group of GAL volunteers is important since it provides “greater stability for the child, and a greater chance that the best interests of the child would be represented in court.” The goals of this pilot study are to understand why people volunteer for and leave GAL/ CASA, evaluate volunteers’ attitudes towards their training, and provide statistical support for potential changes in the training. The PI hopes that at the conclusion of this pilot study, a larger study and evaluation of GAL/CASA will emerge.
Joshua Page, University of Minnesota, is collaborating with the Juvenile Justice Coalition of Minnesota (JJC) on the project titled “Juvenile Justice Transitions Project” (JJTP). This non-profit organization is dedicated to “systems change and advocacy and promoting state-level juvenile justice reform in Minnesota.” The JJTP is a longitudinal study that follows young adults from four juvenile residential facilities into the community. The PIs will examine what pre-incarceration, incarceration, and post-incarceration experiences obstruct and/or facilitate young offenders’ successful reentry into society? The project hopes to help young ex-offenders lead crime-free, productive and meaningful lives once they return to their communities. The JJTP research impacts JJC’s Aftercare group, which has developed tasks that to help young adults make a successful transition into the community after living in residential facilities. The data collected thus far have been used to develop a manual on aftercare, and the qualitative data they will collect will provide a first-hand account of the reentry process. The findings from this project will provide information that will culminate in the development of more literature that will hopefully influence future policy initiatives.
Kylan de Vries and Danielle Estes, Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, are working together with the Community Food Assessment (CFA) project in Jackson and Union counties in Illinois. They will collaborate with Food Works, a non-profit organization that advocates local, sustainable food systems development by partnering with small farm entrepreneurs, local markets, and consumers in southern Illinois. The PIs will answer the question “what do growers and consumers need in order to localize the food system in southern Illinois?” The PIs will assess and document local production by farm size; determine the market structure and barriers for locally produced products; determine the opportunities and barriers for consumer access of local products; and determine the educational needs of the stakeholder. At the conclusion of this project, Food Works and the CFA will put together a report with the findings and create resources that will be available on the Internet. This report will be used to advocate for government and private sector support in developing a local food system, educate suppliers and consumers about local foods, and provide resources to local farmers to expand their production and market their products to local markets.
2009
Shannon Elizabeth Bell, University of Oregon, will work with the Sludge Safety Project (SSP), a grassroots organization based in the coal mining region of West Virginia. The SSP was created with the goal of informing, protecting, and organizing coalfield citizens who suffer from the environmental consequences of irresponsible coal mining practices, specifically, the water pollution from coal waste. The SSP has taken on several projects to raise awareness of the detrimental effects of coal pollution. Bell and five colleagues will work on a project titled “The Southern West Virginia Photovoice Project.” The goal is to develop a full-color booklet of photos that will tell the stories of the women whose health and livelihood is impacted by the coal industry. The photos will be taken by the participants in the program. Each week, the participants will get together to reflect on the pictures and write narratives to go with them. At the end of the project, the 30-page booklet will be distributed to the West Virginia State Senators, delegates, congressional representatives, and the state governor with the intention of creating a line of communication between the participants and policymakers and other elected officials.
Patricia Campion, Tennessee Technological University, will work with L.B.J. & C. Head Start, which oversees head start centers in 12 counties in the upper Cumberland region of middle Tennessee. LBJ&C, established in 1965, is a child development program that aims to improve the lives of families in its communities. In the past ten years, the Hispanic population the organization works with has increased dramatically; 44% of the children are Hispanic. Campion’s project will assess the needs of the Hispanic families who are a part of the Head Start program in Monterey, TN. She will administer a two-part survey to collect demographic data as well as information on the families’ knowledge of existing services and services they would like implemented. A separate research group will conduct interviews with service providers and community leaders involved with social services about how the available resources are used by the Hispanic community. The goal of the project is to increase awareness of Head Start services to the families, better understand the cultural differences among Hispanics, provide cultural training to the Head Start staff, and increase the number of bilingual staff members.
Lori Hunter, University of Colorado-Boulder, will work with The Greenbelt Movement, a Kenyan NGO to undertake a “baseline social research within a tree planting project site in the Mau Forest complex of western Kenya.” The Greenbelt Movement, founded by the 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai, is an active grassroots social movement led primarily by women to restore the natural ecosystems in rural western Kenya and thus improve the livelihood of the households depending on those ecosystems. Hunter will conduct qualitative research to study rural livelihoods, environmental perceptions, society-environment association, food security and issues related to conservation in rural Africa. At the project’s conclusion, they hope to have a final summary and technical report of their findings to submit to the Greenbelt Movement, The Nature Conservancy, and Adopt-an-Acre. The hope is that the lessons and findings will help launch other tree planting projects in various parts of Kenya.
Debbie Storrs, University of Idaho, will collaborate with the Idaho Community Action Network (ICAN) on the “Welcoming Idaho” campaign. This project will measure the effectiveness of the educational dialogues on increasing pro-immigration attitudes in Idaho. The goals of this project are to identify an appropriate billboard message to encourage the citizens of northern Idaho to support and welcome immigrants into the region; to foster dialogues regarding immigration in the region and increase the residents’ understanding and support of immigrants; and assess the effectiveness of immigration messages in attitudes towards immigrants and immigration. Focus groups will help identify appropriate and appealing messages on the topic of immigration for a billboard that will be displayed in northern Idaho. After the messages are made public, another dialogue will be held with members of the community to see if their attitudes towards immigrants and immigration have changed. This project is especially important to ICAN because the Latino population, which makes up about 10% of the state’s population, continues to rise. With this research, ICAN hopes to continue improving and building relationships in the communities.
2008
Mary Glazier, Millersville University, will work with the East King Improvement District (EKID), an organization established in 2004 to create and maintain a clean, safe, and comfortable environment for residents and businesses in southeast Lancaster City, PA. In 2004, EKID received a five-year grant to address ways to reduce crime, increase safety, strengthen neighborhoods through urban redevelopment, and assist residents in taking on a more active role in their neighborhoods. Glazier will work with three undergraduates (who will serve as interns at EKID) and a research assistant to conduct surveys, prepare reports, and facilitate community meetings pertaining to crime and public safety in Lancaster. The students will assist in the data collection process and will work with the research assistant to analyze the data using SPSS. At the project’s conclusion, a report will be presented to EKID, and students will have the opportunity to prepare papers for a professional conference.
Gary Perry and Mako Fitts, both from Seattle University, proposed the “Central Area Displacement Project.” They will partner with representatives from The Central Area Displacement Network, a group of five organizations in Seattle’s Central Area. With the help of the network, they will assess the impact of displacement on the populations serviced by these community partners and the effectiveness of each community partner’s service. They will also assess the needs of each community partner and build a coalition between these community partners to respond to the effects of displacement. These goals will be met through surveys and in-depth interviews with the partners, focus group interviews to address the challenges of each partner, and an evaluative case study to assess the success of the partners in addressing displacement in the Central Area. By June 2009, Perry and Fitts intend to develop a website for the Central Area Displacement Network, which will make their final report available to the public.
Leah Schmalzbauer, Montana State University, will continue a project that addresses immigration issues in Montana’s Gallatin Valley. Over the past several months, Schmalzbauer has conducted in-depth interviews and engaged in participatory observation with local Latinos to determine their needs as well as opportunities for, and barriers to, community incorporation. She has concluded that advocates for the Latino community need to understand and trust each other better and to join forces on community organizing efforts. For the next phase of the project, she will collaborate with the Gallatin Valley Human Rights Task Force to address that need. This project will take place in four phases: (1) organizing and implementing a community forum; (2) developing and administering an anonymous survey to forum participants; (3) facilitating focus groups centered on issues that emerge in the forum; and (4) compiling resources and information guides for the Latino community based on the data collected. These resource guides will be distributed to the community.
Michele Wakin, Bridgewater State College, will work with Father Bill’s and Main Spring and the Plymouth County Housing Alliance to collect detailed information on the homeless population in Massachusetts using surveys and interviews. In order to gather this data, the project will first review and evaluate current methodology and then refine its design, implementation, and evaluation. Past collected data has been instrumental in raising awareness to the needs of the homeless. As a result, Plymouth County established the Housing First Initiative, a program to provide housing for the homeless. Now county and city officials, in conjunction with local service providers and scholars from Bridgewater State College seek to take the initiative a step further. Their goal is to collect enough information to develop a plan to end family homelessness in 10 years. Findings will be disseminated through community forums, at regional meetings on homelessness, and other scholarly venues.
2007
John J. Green, Institute for Community-Based Research, Delta State University, Addressing Community Challenges by Empowering Students and Staff in the Mississippi Delta Green plans to work with community-based nonprofit organizations in the Mississippi Delta to improve the health of its residents through the creation of a new program called ACCESS (Addressing Community Challenges by Empowering Students and Staff). “The program provides an opportunity for both organization staff and students to participate in action research through service learning,” stated Green in his project proposal. Green will be working with several community organizations, including, the Lower Mississippi Service Corps, Tougaloo College/Delta Health Partners Health Start Initiative, the Mississippi Delta Service Corps/ AmeriCorps*Vistas Program, and the Jamestown Community Development Resource and Activity Center.
Donald P. Levy, West Virginia Wesleyan College, Mapping the Child Advocacy System: Upshur County Upshur County, WV, has a child poverty rate twice the national average, with 40 percent of seventh graders projected to fail to complete high school. Each year, approximately 300 cases are referred to Child Protective Services. His project will complete an in-depth analysis of the current child advocacy system in Upshur County. Levy and his sociology class, Community, Social Change, and Development, will work with Mountain CAP (Community Action Program) of West Virginia to collect data to “provide all members of the child advocacy system a description of how the system is supposed to work, how it does or does not work, and where pathways either do not function properly or do not exist.”
John D McCarthy, Pennsylvania State University, and Edward T. Walker, Pennsylvania State University, A Proposal to Chronicle a Decade of Change in a Sample of Neighborhood and Community-Based Organizations McCarthy and Walker’s project looks at the how the political and economic changes of the past decade have affected neighborhood and community groups working to empower disadvantaged residents. They will examine, what the groups have accomplished over the past 15 years by examining membership, economic development, funding sources, staff, and issue focuses of the different organizations. “This project…will bring sociological expertise to bear on community issues identified by associations active in poor communities,” said McCarthy and Walker. They will work with the Neighborhood Funders Group to “provide significant new knowledge regarding effective organizing strategies, which will be used to assist in the development of strategies for organizing to fight against poverty and homelessness, and for quality schools and improved social services.”
Margaret Abraham, Gregory M. Maney, Hofstra University, Tuhina De O’Connor, New York Asian Women’s Center, and Nadia Marin Molina, Workplace Project/Centro de Derechos Laborales, Seen and Sheltered: Effective Responses to NIMBYism (Not In My Back Yard movements) Abraham and Maney will work with Tuhina De O’Connor and the New York Asian Women’s Center and Nadia Marin Molina and Workplace Project/Centro de Derechos Laborales to help community based organizations respond to the problems of the understudied “Not in My Back Yard” movements (NIMBYism). The investigators will conduct a literature review, collect NIMBY documentation related to the work and experiences of New York Asian Women’s Center and the Workplace Project/Centro de Derechos Laborales, and conduct focus groups with members of both organizations who have dealt with NIMBYism, among other activities. “The project can assist advocacy groups in creating public space for marginalized and vulnerable immigrant populations. Through lessons learned from our research, organizations can hone their strategies to reduce community tensions, transform anti-immigrant/anti-minority attitudes and practices, and eliminate baseless anxieties among some neighborhood residents.”
Amy Stone, Trinity University, Bringing Homeless into the Circles of Care: A Community-University Partnership in San Antonio, TX Stone plans to work with sociology students enrolled in three research methods classes at Trinity University to carry out a comprehensive study of homelessness in San Antonio, TX. By request, Stone and her students will work with the San Antonio Regional Alliance for the Homeless (SARAH). The students will collaborate with SARAH to “provide city and county agencies with information as to the approximate number, geographical distribution, and determined needs for the sheltered and street homeless in San Antonio and Bexar County. The research results will allow agencies to enhance service outreach to the homeless in ways that they will find accessible and effective. Another objective is to educate the homeless about services available to them and to explore the best ways to deliver those services.”
Leslie McCallister, East Tennessee State University McCallister will work with the NAACP of Johnson City-Washington County, TN, to develop an understanding of the health and needs of the minority population in the area. Students in McCallister’s Community Sociology course will analyze and interpret data they collect primarily through telephone interviews and focus groups. They will work to identify the gaps in the current health care programs and identify the needs of minorities. McCallister and her students will also work with the NAACP to develop and implement solutions to the identified needs of the minority population.
Peggy Petrzelka, Utah State University, Environmental Justice through Grassroots Activism: Supporting Popular Epidemology in Monticello, UT Petrzelka plans to work with Victims of Mill Tailings Exposure (VMTE). VMTE works with residents and victims of the mill tailings in Monticello, UT, to fix holes they find in the reports by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), a federal public health agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. ATSDR is charged with assessing health hazards at Superfund sites, reducing and preventing further exposure to illness, and educating people affected by the sites of health risks. Petrzelka will help the VMTE conduct a health survey of residents living in Monticello. She will then analyze the survey data and, if necessary, amend the Utah cancer registry with the survey results, as well as disseminate the results to relevant policy makers and other communities undergoing similar situations. “With this increase in uranium mining and the Superfund at its weakest point since its inception, strong grassroots activism is more critical than ever.”
2006
Rebecca Bach, Duke University, will work with Kim Dixon, director of Durham Crisis Response Center (DCRC), to collect data on issues of motherhood among battered women. They will conduct in-depth interviews of women with children. They will use the data collection to provide the most effective safe and supportive environment for battered women and to assist them in their transition to independent living. With a better understanding of the women the center serves, the staff can provide more tailored information, resources, and counseling to provide a successful transition.
Gianpaolo Baiocchi, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, was awarded funds to work with one of the most active human rights organizations in the city of Salvador in Brazil, AGANJU. His “Engenho Velho Project” will develop and implement community-based hu- man-rights monitoring in a predominately Afro-Brazilian neighborhood in Salvador. With five students from the neighborhood, his research will involve community mapping through inter- views with the community and focused discussion groups with identified stakeholders. He intends to produce a publication for human rights education in the neighborhood.
Rosann Bar and Yang Kai, both of Caldwell College, will use their CARI funds to create a workable database for and to conduct a formative evaluation of the Conversations on Race (COR), a community-based organization that deals with race relations, to assist with its work. The research intends to understand the social policy impact of the COR program on individual participants and on the community of Montclair, NJ. In order to do this project, the researchers will develop a workable database, which will provide inside and outside individuals accurate information on the membership. COR will benefit from more effective management for program leadership.
Heather M. Fitz Gibbon and Anne M. Nurse, both from the College of Wooster, received support for their project, “Summer Evaluation Research Program.” This program will partner with the United Way to evaluate the effectiveness of their activities and to build the evaluation skills of sociology undergraduates at the College of Wooster. With the researchers at the center, the undergraduates will help the United Way and other future agencies identify their goals and develop ways to assess how well they are meeting those goals.
Jeffrey Gingrich, Cabrini College, will work in partnership with the Hospital- ity Center of Norristown, a homeless day shelter, to address issues of prisoner re-entry on Montgomery County, PA, particularly in relation to the homeless and the organizations that serve them. The project is a college-community collaborative. The approach is to provide a needs assessment evaluation regarding housing and personal needs of prisoner re-entry. The College and the Hospitality Center will perform this assessment and host meetings between social service providers in the community in order to develop new programming strategies.
Karen Werner, Goddard College, will work with Julie Graham, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, and Natalie Shafiroff, to do participatory research with three community enterprises—market-oriented projects whose focus is community well-being—in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts. They will produce case studies of three local enterprises to provide them with their own self-assessments, help them learn from each other, and make their knowledge available to other groups and policymakers in the Valley. The community groups are Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture, Anti-Displacement Project, and River Valley Market.
2005
Kathlyn Barry, Wayne State University, received support to work with the community organization Safe Horizons, which provides services for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault. The goal of her project, the Macomb Institutional Response Evaluation (MIRE), is to evaluate the response of the police, prosecutors, and the justice system in Macomb County, Michigan, to domestic violence and assault com- plaints during 2003 in order to prevent needless deaths. After the collection and analyses of data, the results of MIRE will be presented to the Macomb County Council on Family Violence and will include recommendations for changes in domestic violence police and legal response.
Rebecca Culyba, American Bar Foundation, will use her grant to work with AIDS Athens, a community-based, volunteer agency committed to meeting the needs of northeast Georgians infected with AIDS through case management and direct client services. Her project will conduct a systematic program evaluation of the “Well 2 Do” HIV prevention program, which trains barbers and beauticians as peer educators and provides educational materials to their customers. The purpose is to provide AIDS Athens with well-organized data on the Well 2 Do program and measurable goals for revising future training and recruitment strategies.
Brenda M. Kowalewski, Weber State University, received her CARI grant to work with Youth Impact, a youth development program for “at risk” adolescents in Ogden, Utah. Her project launches the beginning phase of a 20- year longitudinal study involving undergraduate students to determine the effectiveness of after school and youth development projects through literature reviews and interviews. The measured outcome areas are: academic performance, social skills, emotional well- being, and behavioral problems. The project will provide Youth Impact with information on the effectiveness of their programs and provide an analyses of the short-term and long-term effects of the program.
Camerino Salazar, University of Texas-Health Science Center San Antonio, will assist The South Texas Injury Prevention and Research Center, which works to reduce the burden of injury among the South Texas region through education, research, and intervention. His project aims to deter- mine adult Hispanic male attitude and behaviors regarding drinking and impaired driving through focus groups. It will also assess their familiarity with impaired driving laws. The goal is to raise the community awareness about the social, health, and legal consequences associated with drinking and driving, and gather new data about the risk factors associated with impaired driving.
Linda Shaw and Richelle Swan, California State University-San Marcos, will use their CARI funds to work with the Supportive Parents Information Network (SPIN). SPIN is a grassroots organization that encourages low- income and welfare families to identify and respond to economic and social barriers. Their project funds will be used to conduct a needs assessment among previous welfare fraud offenders in order to develop an alternative to prosecution, the Fraud Diversion Program, for first-time offenders. The goal of the assessment is to provide guidelines for information packets and training programs to educate the welfare community and to reduce fraud.
Linda M. Waldron, Christopher Newport University, received a CARI grant to work with Maasai American Organization in Kenya, which partners with Kenyan groups for the promotion of education, community health, and sustainable industry and has agreed to pay for boarding school education for some Maasai girls. Waldron’s project will assess the benefits, challenges, and outcomes of this education through qualitative interviews with the educated girls to assess their expectations and evaluate their future. Her goals are to determine how their education affects their family life and culture, and gather an inventory of where the girls are educationally.
2004
Denise Baird, Franklin College, received support to work with the community organization Youth Connections, which provides a central community in Indiana with services that promote positive youth development. Working with the center ’s Families in Transition (FIT) program, Baird will design an evaluative program to assist the agency deal better with youth and community needs through assistance to divorcing families. The evaluation centers on focus group interviews with FIT participants and then a second set of focus group interviews with community stakeholders. These evaluative data will strengthen FIT through a better understanding of its program’s strengths and weaknesses.
Leslie Hossfeld, University of North Carolina-Pembroke, will use her grant to work with the Center for Community Action’s Jobs for the Future Project. The Center, in a poor, rural North Carolina county, empowers community individuals and instructs and unites them to improve the quality of life. The project goals include a policy initiative to acquire funds for economic development and reconstruction; and an expansion of minority-owned businesses to create more equitable growth and income. The project will include extensive research on the impact of job loss and the methods to address this problem. Hossfeld has already presented her pilot research at a congressional briefing in Washington, DC, (see p. 1 of the April 2004, Footnotes).
Joselin Landry and Shirley Laska, University of New Orleans, received their CARI grant to work with Grand Bayou Families United, a rural community located within Louisiana’s coastal marsh. The close-knit community is comprised of 25 families seeking to improve their situation by addressing problems of economic development, coastal restoration, and housing. They plan to use their funds to follow a participatory action research program where they will assist the community with knowledge and in- kind donations. But the community guides all of the groups’ efforts. Landry and Laska will meet with residents to develop a common research agenda and initiate the projects in order to address community sustainability.
Emily S. Mann, University of Maryland-College Park, will use her funds to work with the Washington, DC, organization La Clinica del Pueblo that provides culturally appropriate health services to the Latino community. Her project will assess healthcare issues of Latino teenagers, especially regarding sex education, comprehensive care, and family planning. She plans to alleviate the data deficit— using quantitative and qualitative research methods—on Latino teenager health (i.e., physical activity, pregnancy and STD prevention, and nutritional practices) in the Washington metropolitan area in order to provide a greater quality of care and enhance the capacity of the clinic to obtain funds.
Jennifer Bickham Mendez, College of William and Mary, received a CARI grant to work with Child Development Resources (CDR), an umbrella organization for families with young children. She will set up a needs assessment for the entire CDR, especially focusing on its Comprehensive Health Investment Project (CHIP) of Greater Williamsburg, which strengthens families to improve community health and family self-sufficiency. The project will look at Latino immigrants’ experiences of exclusion, eco- nomic survival, and integration and identify the barriers to their well-being. The project will provide CDR with systematic, documented, and rich information about the local Latino community.
Meredith M Redlin, South Dakota State University, will work with Dakota Rural Action, an organization of predominately low- and moderate- income rural South Dakotans whose mission is the empowerment of disenfranchised individuals through direct action organizing. She plans to carry out a policy analysis of family farm laws to identify potential weaknesses and collect survey data to analyze resident opinions and concerns in counties experiencing an influx of large dairy operations. The goal is to provide a research base for community organizing and future legislation in the state pertaining to corporate agriculture.
Michele Wakin, University of California-Santa Barbara, will work with the community organization Legal Project of the Committee for Social Justice to conduct a needs assessment of local day laborers. The Legal Project is a group of attorneys and concerned citizens whose purpose is to promote and protect the rights of marginalized populations. The CARI funds will enable the organization to make contact with legal and undocumented immigrants and explore their primary needs using ethnographic data to examine demographics and determine their existing conditions on the job. The goal is to suggest long-term solutions to minimizing the negative impact of the Day Labor Line on its members and the local community.
2003
Carrie Foote-Ardah, Indiana University-Purdue University, will assess the HIV-related needs of women and children in Indiana by working with the Health Education Division of the Mary Rigg Neighborhood Center (MRNC). Her work will focus on mental health/ substance abuse, housing, reproductive health, prevention, education and advocacy, childcare, and other areas. Her project will apply a field approach using secondary analysis; surveys and focus group interviews; and analysis of provider information forms. Her goal is to document the range and intensity of HIV I AIDS care and support services and the organizational and personal barriers to this care. She will present the findings to assist with the implementation of MRNC’s Family AIDS Network Program.
Lourdes Gouveia, University of Nebraska-Omaha, will work to facilitate the Chicano Awareness Center and determine the primary factors accounting for the area’s Latino student achievement and rising high school dropout rates. Using the pioneering work of Alejandro Partes and Ruben Rumbaut, she will use qualitative and quantitative data collection, archival research, and academic studies to investigate the structural and group factors contributing to Latino performance in schools. After designing and conducting surveys and interviews, her final goal is to generate a community report, which can lead to policy changes and intervention. The project will provide the needed documentation to determine the educational attainment profiles so the organization may better design their programs.
Gregory S. Scott, DePaul University, will work with the Chicago Recovery Alliance’s Youth Education Outreach Program, which assists individuals at high-risk for contracting HIV I AIDS. His project is a short-term, mixed method study to evaluate the processes and outcomes associated with the youth program. He will research how the program works; forms of intervention and how they vary; the effectiveness of the program; and how the clients’ behaviors change with intervention. Graduate students will assist with the research through participant observation and personal interviews with Youth Outreach Educators (YOE). His goals are to improve the program’s service, enhance the youth program management capacity, bolster relations with the community, and facilitate training of current and perspective YOEs.
Glenn Tsunokai, Western Washington University, will assist the Asian Youth Center (AYC), which provides outreach and services to Asian immigrants and Asian Americans in the San Gabriel Valley. His project focuses on the effectiveness of AYC’s domestic violence prevention and intervention program. The Center holds classes with the objectives of increasing awareness of child and spousal abuse; develop appropriate anger management skills; and decrease incidences of domestic violence. Using surveys, data collection, analysis, and feedback, his project will assess the degree to which the objectives are met. His goal is to determine the efficacy of the abuse program, assist AYC administrators to improve intervention, and informally train staff in techniques for on-going evaluation.
Teresa Tsushima and Lotis Gray, both of Washington State University, will work with the Community Action Center (CAC) of Whitman County, a community support system for people living in poverty. CAC empowers low- income families through self-reliance and cooperation. Tsushima and Gray’s project is a community assets mapping effort, which will create a thorough analysis of the human, organizational, and infra- structure resources and their distribution across the county. The project will engage the use of Geographical Information Systems mapping tools to develop a series of maps that locate resources across the county’s regions. They will create a user-friendly database of maps with detailed information of area non- profits for the CAC. Their goal is to disseminate this approach nationwide.
2002
Mary Danica, California State Polytechnic University-Pomona, will work on a project titled Orange County Low-Income Asian American Youth Needs Assessment. She will work with the Orange County Asian and Pacific Islander Community Alliance to survey low-income Asian-American youth in Orange County on their health, safety, education, and family well-being to develop a needs assessment. The goal of the project is to develop a strategic plan and recommendations to improve the social, health, and economic opportunities for the youth of the community.
Pamela Fendt, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, will highlight the common concerns related to the balance of work and family issues among women of different socio- economic backgrounds with the New Hope Project. Her goal is to educate community leaders about issues facing low-income women in the Milwaukee area through a participatory research approach. In order to affect public policy, she plans to teach researchers in community development and low-income women about participatory research and then use the information to develop an action plan of long-term goals.
Jeffrey Leiter, North Carolina State University-Raleigh, will work with the North Carolina State AFL-CIO to design a collaborative internet website that will act as a labor center. The site will offer information on unions, workplace issues, and organizing strategies to offer the services of a labor project through the internet. The goal of Leiter’s proposal is to expand North Carolina union capacity, connect workers with work-related problems to solutions, and use applied research to improve labor union effectiveness.
Kelly E. Smith, University of Arizona, will use her CARl grant to work with the Primavera Foundation to study the state of day laborers in Tucson and effects of recent policy changes in the area. She will specifically address advocacy needs of day laborers by surveying changes in their conditions and whether they are aware of recent legislation. This will be done with University of Arizona’s Department of Sociology and Center for Applied Sociology through 200 interviews with day laborers. The project connects the school and its students with the community in order to provide mutual benefits.
Caleb Southworth, University of Oregon, applied to study the Municipal Government of Komsomolsk, Ukraine. The city was a center for iron ore extraction during the Soviet period as part of a military industrial complex. In the post-Soviet society, Komsomolsk is trying to solve major social, environmental, and health problems. Southworth will work with city managers to assess the social and economic problems in the city through survey methods and in- depth interviews about citizens’ current employment, health problems, and city needs. The CARl funds will be used to produce the survey, train local students and community leaders in survey methods, and conduct interviews.
2001
Joanna Badagliaco, University of Kentucky, will work with the Faith Community Housing Foundation (FCHF), which assists members of the community in locating affordable low-income housing and in remaining housed. Her project intends to establish data collection mechanisms and create an appropriate database for FCHF to use in meeting its goals, which include describing the population served or in need, and assessing the impact of community intervention, involvement, and assistance. She will also train staff to gather and enter data. Her intended outcome is to develop preliminary analyses of the database and the creation of summary reports.
Lisa Frohmann, University of Illinois, Chicago, Battered Women’s Photography Project, will work with the Jane Addams Hull House Association and Chicago Connections Women’s Program. Her proposal is to run workshops for battered women interested in exploring definitions, experiences, and strategies for being safe through photography and narrative. The project provides women with an opportunity for self-expression, explore means for safety in their life, and adds battered women’s voices to the development and evaluation of safety interventions.
Michael Lawson, The College of New Jersey, Discovering Program Effectiveness, will develop and apply outcome measures for Isles-Youthbuild, a high school completion and job-training program for inner-city youth, and Anchor House, a non-profit shelter for runaway adolescents. He intends to develop program-specific outcome measures, build database applications, fill databases with in-program and follow-up information from recent clients, and provide statistical reports on collected data. In addition to helping the organizations with research, the other project goal is undergraduate research training.
Janice C. Morrissey, Berry College, will work with the South Rome Community Association and the East Rome Community Association, two non-profits focused on community improvement issues. Her project involves linking Berry College students and faculty with residents of Rome’s low-income community in community-based research. The goal is to develop knowledge that can bring about social change, “promote community capacity for self-help, and develop students’ leadership skills.
Margaret K. Nelson, Middlebury College, will work with the Vermont Coalition of Clinics for the Uninsured, a group of nine free health care clinics for the impoverished or uninsured. She intends to compare and contrast the member clinics with “traditional” models, freestanding health-care facilities, and “incorporation” models, operating through local hospitals or clinics and incorporating clients. She will look at socio-demographic characteristics, health status of clients, range and accessibility of services provided, the cost per client, and measures of client outcomes. Her findings should help decision makers understand how well the two models serve the uninsured.
Emily Rosenbaum, Fordham University, will work with Part of the Solution (POTS), a community-based organization offering multiple services to the homeless. She intends to provide information to improve the match between services and needs, including the development of a database of client characteristics and their awareness of services in order to improve its planning. With student assistants, Rosenbaum will interview clients about their perceptions. She will work with students to make the research an educational experience for them as well.
Lynet Uttal, University of Wisconsin- Madison, will assist the Community Coordinated Child Care {4-C), which helps find childcare, provides training to childcare providers, provides a referral service, manages certification programs, and sponsors food pro- grams and training in nutritional practices. Her project is a collaborative university-community project, which will focus on the needs of the Latino community in terms of childcare. The goal is to conduct surveys, evaluate recruitment methods, analyze certification, observe childcare settings, and have a collaborative research process. The project’s goals are to improve childcare, expand the number of childcare workers, improve certification, and develop reports on the childcare needs of Latino families.
2000
Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, University of Southern California (USC), Immi- grant Workers’ Rights Advocacy, will work with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles (CHIRLA) on their Workers’ Rights Project. She will canvass various religious organizations that serve immigrants to facilitate the formation of a network of service providers and advocates. One possible outcome would be for CHIRLA to serve as an umbrella organization for many of these non-profit groups. A second piece of this project involves placement of USC students in these organizations in service-learning projects.
John Krinsky, Columbia University; Municipal Workplaces for Community Organizations, Unions, and Public Policymakers, will work with Community Voices Heard (CVH), a grassroots welfare rights organization and with District Council 37 of the American Federation of State, Municipal and County Employees (AFSMCE). Krinsky intends to bring together information about workfare workers and municipal workers in order to provide a better picture of municipal workplaces for community organizations, unions, and public policymakers. He will help CVH analyze data about the role of workfare workers in municipal worksites and then inter- view municipal workers in those sites.
Harry Milm, Central Michigan University, Program Evaluation of the Greater Shankill Alternatives Programme, will bring his longstanding interest in conflict mediation to Northern Ireland. At their invitation, Mika will train Programme staff on how to conduct an evaluation of their services and how to engage in strategic planning. The Greater Shankill Alternatives Programme provides an alternative to the use of punishment violence against serious and chronic offending youth by paramilitary organizations. The youth may provide community service, make reparations to victims, and gain skills to find more stable employment.
Brian Rich, Transylvania University; Lexington Hispanic Association, Inc. (LHA), will use focus groups to hear the social service needs of Hispanic residents in Lexington, KY, and will identify and map the residential locations of a small number of Hispanic clusters throughout the Lexington metro area. This information should aid LHA and other non-profit groups in their service delivery and planning.
Judy Taylor, University of California- Santa Barbara, Project 10 Survey, will survey and interview gay and lesbian teenagers to assess their needs and evaluate the high school “climate” for these students. Project 10 is a support program for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and questioning students in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Taylor has done her dissertation research on and with Project 10 and will extend this work to provide the Project with important needs assessment data.
Mary Tiwminen, Denison University; Assessment of Seattle Family Childcare Providers, will work with the Seattle Worthy Wages Task Force, an organization of childcare workers seeking to better their wages and working conditions. She will interview childcare workers and prepare a report that can be used in community education and legislative advocacy regarding family childcare providers.
Ana Maria Wahl, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Asset-Based Needs Assessment: The Strengthening Neighbor- hoods Partnerships, will undertake an “asset-based” needs assessment of several distressed neighborhoods. The “asset-based” approach documents the strengths of a community as well as its needs. Wahl and students in the “Doing Sociology” course will conduct door-to- door interviews, focus groups, inter- views with key informants, and undertake participant observation. A final report will be presented to Strengthening Neighborhoods Partner- ships for their use in building on the assets and removing some of the barriers to stable housing, education, and employment.
1999
Richard Arum and David Snow, University of Arizona, Welfare Reform in Tucson: An Impact Assessment Study, will work with five Spanish-speaking under- graduates who will interview families in two low-income areas of Tucson about the impact of changes in welfare benefits. Their results will be shared with Tucson social service agencies providing support for these families.
Kenneth A. Root, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Needs Assessment for Anoka County Job Training Center, plans to conduct a needs assessment for the Training Center in Blaine, MN, which provides training for 250 dislocated workers from United Defense, a defense contractor that has terminated their employment. Because most of the workers are older and have limited transferable skills, designing training for them is challenging.
Clifford Staples, University of North Dakota, The First Two Years of Welfare Community Action Research Initiative Awards Reform in North Dakota: A Study of TANF Case-Closures, July 1, 1997 to June 30, 1999, will follow families who have gone off welfare when the reforms went into effect statewide in July 1997. While the Department of Human Services will support a mailed survey, Staples will do follow up in sample counties to insure that non-response bias is minimal and that additional information about families well-being can be gathered.
Margaret Walsh, The Sage Colleges, Joining Jobs and Support Services for the Homeless in Downtown Troy, New York: A Needs Assessment Plan will assist five non-profit agencies in the Troy Homeless Services Collaborative to design a business plan. She will interview homeless adults, assessing their skills, education, health, childcare and transportation needs. Then, she will interview small business owners about available work opportunities. The results will be used by the agencies to develop training for these adults to find and retain jobs.
Jeffry Will, University of North Florida, Expanding Service Provisions for the Homeless—Emergency Services and Homeless Coalition will work with over seventy agencies in the Jacksonville coalition to obtain FEMA funding, to develop a typology of homeless children in that region and propose services for them, and to complete an annual census of home- less persons in northern Florida.
1998
Valerie S. Brown, Cuyahoga Community College-Metropolitan Campus, “Olivet Health and Education Institute: Course Proposal for Health and Culture in the African American Community.” Brown will work with the Olivet Health and Education Institute (OHEI) in the Fairfax/East Village of Cleveland Ohio to establish an 11-week social science course that focuses on health concerns in the African American community. The course centers on radical and ethnic groups and relations in US society; social stratification and social institutions; health care and quality of life in the US to identify the underlying causes of major acute and chronic illnesses in the African American community along with effective prevention strategies.
Linda Francis and Paul W. Colson, SUNY Stony Brook, “Assessing Consumer Involvement in the Provision of Services to People with Severe Mental Illness.” Francis and Colson will work with the nonprofit Federation of Organizations for the New York State Mentally Disabled Inc. on a needs assessment about the current and potential benefits of consumer involvement in community mental health agencies.
Amy S. Hubbard, Virginia Commonwealth University, “Evaluation of Interracial Dialogue Program in Hope in the Cities Coalition.” Hubbard will conduct an evaluation of an interracial dialogue program at Hope in the Cities (HIC), an interracial, multi-faith coalition in Richmond, VA, that is working to bring people together across lines of conflict to work on problems facing the community and urban areas in general. HIC works closely with President Clinton’s commission on race relations and seeks an evaluation of its model of dialogue to perhaps promote nation-wide.
Lori M. Hunter, Utah State University, “Exploring the Alternatives to a Full Landfill.” Hunter is working with the Logan UT Environmental Health Department to design a community survey about recycling and other forms of household trash reduction. Facing a full landfill within the decade, the city and county seek advice on how best to assess and ultimately shape public opinion to reduce waste.
Judith Little, Humboldt, State University. “Community Development in Blue Lake and Orleans/Somes Bar communities.” Little and graduate students in the University’s applied sociology MA program, will assist the Arcata Economic Development Corporation with plans for two communities affected by changes in the timber industry. The researchers will survey the communities about their goals and assessment of community strengths and weaknesses, then using the results to meet with AEDC to being a development plan.
1997
William R. Burch, Yale University (School of Forestry and Environmental Studies). Burch will work in Baltimore with the Parks & People’s Foundation’s Urban Resources Initiative (URI) on a project called Neighborhood Revitalization through Open Space Restoration. They plan to develop a city-wide policy for the creative management of open space in Baltimore, specifically the growing number of vacant lots. One goal of the project is to determine how open space areas can be managed to revitalize areas.
Charles Kurzman, Georgia State University, Tracking the Effect of Welfare Reform on the Homelessness Population of Atlanta. Kurzman will work with the Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless to gauge the effect of welfare reform on the homeless population of metropolitan Atlanta through a survey of shelters and other service providers. Their goal is to understand the linkage between welfare reform and homelessness through open-ended interviews with selected respondents, and to compare the demographics and welfare status of people who call a homelessness hotline with homeless people utilizing shelters and other services. Students from Georgia State will be included as researchers.
Darlene L. Pina, California State University-San Marcos, Evaluating Cultural Competency among Staff in a Non-Profit Multi-cultural Clinic. Pina’s project evaluates clinicians’ ability to deliver culturally competent services at Centro do Ayuda Familiar y de Educacion (CAFE) in north San Diego county. The evaluation will be followed by the development, delivery, and evaluation of cultural competency workshops for CAFE’s staff of service providers in his multicultural region.
Brett Stockdill, University of California-Los Angeles, Building a Community-Based Health Intervention: Enhancing the Utilization of Services for People Living with HIV/AIDS in South Central Los Angeles. Stockdill’s project will be conducted at the Mental Health SPECTRUM (Service for HIV Prevention, Education, Care, Treatment, and Research for Underserved Minorities), which is the only community-based agency providing comprehensive mental health services to people living with HIV in South Central Los Angeles. The project is a pilot study which will assist in the creation of effective community-based interventions to promote the health-related empowerment of people living with HIV. The study will also evaluate the effectiveness of a community-based intervention which will assist HIV-positive participants to access HIV/AIDS-related services.
1996
Cynithia Deitch, George Washington University (Women’s Studies Program). Deitch will work with the Metropolitan Women’s Organizing Project (MWOP), which assists low wage workers, to gather qualitative and quantitative data on women domestic workers. She will develop profiles of several groups of domestic workers to give “voice” to their issues as a largely invisible and often exploited segment of the economy. MWOP is working on organizing these domestic workers and improving their working conditions, including health care and other benefits.
David Wiley, Michigan State University, “Industrial Pollution and Environmental Racism.” Wiley and colleague Christine Root will work with the Wentworth Development Forum (WDF) in Durban, South Africa to help with their negotiations with an oil refinery and other petro-chemical industries located adjacent to the “Coloured” and Indian Communities created by the apartheid Group Areas Act. Wiley and Root will visit communities in the US that have negotiated with similar industries adjacent to them; they will also review the literature and interview US community leaders in order to advise the South African communities in their negotiations.
Leslie McCall and Eric Parker, Rutgers University, “Campaign for Livable Wages.” The Interfaith Community Organization of Jersey City, NJ, and the Industrial Union Council of the AFL-CIO are working on an initiative for livable wages. Parker will use city records to examine the impact of a livable wage bill on city contracts; McCall will analyze labor market trends for the area and look at the likely fiscal impact of the proposed ordinance for low-income workers. These data and analyses will inform the work of these and other community groups working on livable wage ordinances in Jersey City.
William F. Waters, George Washington University (Center for International Health), “Health Conditions of the Latino Populations in Washington, DC Metropolitan Area.” Waters will work with La Clinica del Pueblo to develop a database of about 3,000 cases, representing registration in health fairs. This effort will provide an opportunity to train clinic staff in basic data entry and health care needs and socioeconomic positions of Latinos in the DC Metropolitan area. Waters will lead a participatory workshop for the Clinica del Pueblo staff about what he has learned.
1995
Al Gedicks, University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse, for “War on Subsistence: Mining vs. The Sokaogon Chippewa.” This project involves gathering research and evaluating technical studies on the social, economic, and cultural impacts of a proposed underground zinc-copper mine adjacent to the Mole Lake Sokaogon Chippewa Reservation near Crandon, WI. Gedicks will assist the tribe in preparation for tribal intervention in the State of Wisconsin’s master hearing on the Crandon Mining Company’s application to construct the proposed mine.
John Gaventa and Lee Williams, University of Tennessee, for “A Sourcebook for Participatory Research for Grassroots Investigators.” Working from the Community Partnership Center at the University of Tennessee, Gaventa and Williams plan to develop a sourcebook on participatory action research directed at grassroots citizens interested in actively pursuing their own specific research needs and academic researchers interested in pursuing collaborative research projects within communities. The sourcebook will contain resource lists, case studies, and practical strategies, and will be distributed through the Center.
Nancy Naples, University of California-Irvine, for “Bridging Cultures or Reinforcing the Divide Between White European Americans and Latinos: The Contradictory Role of Community Workers in Rural Iowa.” Naples has been working with an organization called PrarieFire Rural Action, founded 10 years ago during the farm crisis to help rural residents to respond to and cope with challenges posed by foreclosures and general economic decline. Naples’ work concentrates on the recent and growing Latino population in rural Iowa. She will undertake a broad-based ethnographic study with oral and written reports shared with the community reporting on the themes that emerge from interview with new and longstanding members of the community.
Paul Johnston, Yale University, “Citizen Development Project.” Johnston in working with the Pro-Democracy Education Fund of Slainas, La Alianza, and Teamsters Union Local 890 in California to help low-wage Mexican-American workers in California secure and exercise their citizenship rights. “The union is a major stable institution linking many or most of these disenfranchised people to civil institutions,” says Johnston. Accordingly, the union wants to build a model of unionism that includes the exercise of citizenship rights. Johnston will do a needs assessment and a census of membership to see who a citizen and what services is are needed.
