Examples of Successful Proposals

Revitalizing the Center for Community Action Research: A CYFC Level I proposal to establish CYF-focused service learning and action research partnerships

Purpose

Faculty in the Community Psychology and Social Change program of the Penn State, Harrisburg campus have been working in partnership with a number of graduate students since January 2002 to revitalize the Center for Community Action Research (C-CAR). To build on those efforts, we are requesting Level I funding to organize and hold a series of meetings of representatives of agencies, non-profit and community based organizations focusing on important issues related to children, youth and families in the Greater Harrisburg area. This project is proposed collaboratively by the Co-Directors of C-CAR; Faculty in the School of Public Administration, Criminal Justice; and the Director of the Early Childhood Institute, Prevention Research Center, College of Health and Human Development, University Park.

Through the meetings, we will explore areas of potential collaboration across disciplines within the College and between University, agency and community personnel addressing CYF-related issues. For example, we will explore the interest in and willingness to develop community service learning opportunities for our students and action research partnerships with College faculty across disciplines through C-CAR.

Brief Background and Description of Activities

Historically, C-CAR has supported a broad range of activities. In addition to serving as the institutional partner for the CASSP institute, faculty affiliates provided skill-building workshops for local organizations, conducted program evaluations for state agencies and undertook national studies on CYF-related issues. However, a number of changes- including the recent retirement and/or relocation of several former faculty affiliates and extensive curricular revisions- have necessitated a reassessment of the Center's mission and activities.

Faculty engaged in revitalizing the Center have identified two parallel foci to meet faculty research and curricula objectives while making a simultaneous contribution to the campus and broader community: community service learning and community-based research. Initial efforts to identify faculty across our campus currently using or interested in developing service learning components in their courses has indicated strong interest and support from faculty from each School in the College. We have spent the spring semester of 2002 working with a team of graduate students exploring existing service learning and action research centers around the country in an effort to learn from their experiences. One important finding is that none of those institutions has yet integrated these two complimentary components. Thus, in addition to meeting an identified interest of College faculty, we are poised to make a unique and innovative contribution to higher education and University-community partnership building through this unprecedented linkage.

We are now at a critical juncture in our efforts. In order to further redevelop C-CAR in a manner that is consistent with its objectives, we would like to hold a series of meetings of community-based organizations as well as both public and private agencies addressing issues facing the children, youth and families of the Greater Harrisburg region to explore the potential role for service learning and community-based research initiatives in pursuing their activities. With their input and guidance, C-CAR can begin to make a meaningful contribution to their work while, at the same time, meeting the educational and research objectives identified by our faculty.

Relevance to CYFC Goals

The meetings we propose, as well as the activities we will undertake in its planning and execution, will reflect and contribute to a number of the Consortium's identified themes. Through the meeting, those most directly involved in issues facing children, youth and families in our region will help to identify critical concerns facing their constituents and foster development of a number of community-based research initiatives that may help address, prevent or ameliorate those concerns through active partnerships between the agencies, communities and PSU faculty and students. Students across the full range of programs and disciplines at Penn State Capitol College will also find enhanced opportunities to become directly involved in addressing those issues and learning about them through in-depth 'real world' experience through service learning partnerships. This opportunity to improve the civic engagement and citizenship education of PSU students by creating linkages between their classroom and lived experiences was at the core of our initial proposal to revitalize C-CAR. Opportunities to address additional core themes of the consortium will also be identified through the collaborative process of the meetings.

Funding

$3200 graduate assistant ($10/hour, 10 hours/week, 32 weeks)
400 materials (directories of relevant agencies/organizations, photocopying outreach materials, flip charts/markers for meetings, etc)
150 postage (outreach/invitations, distribution of meeting outcome report)
200 travel (outreach/introductory meetings with appropriate community-based organizations)
100 refreshments and supplies for meetings
$4050

Budget Justification

The majority of the funding will go to support the activities of a graduate student who will be charged with mapping the CYFC-related resources, agencies and organizations throughout the Greater Harrisburg Area. While the team of graduate students who have been involved in ongoing C-CAR planning have begun this process by identifying many of the governmental agencies and some of the more prominent non-profit organizations, a host of smaller groups- including neighborhood centers, community-based organizations and other less well networked groups have yet to be contacted. While these groups may be less well known by the established professional networks, they are apt to have unique insights into local needs and interests and we believe it is critical to include them in a broader strategic planning process to address the needs of children, youth and families in our communities.

Identifying these organizations will necessarily be more time and effort intensive than locating groups that are already members of established networks (which often appear in directories of social services, for example). The graduate student supported through these CYFC funds will be trained in and use community mapping techniques (e.g. McKnight and Kretzman, 1997) and snowball sampling strategies to better develop our awareness of CYF-related organizations throughout the region and to develop a list of potential participants in the proposed meetings. Beyond those activities, the student will help with other administrative duties specifically related to planning, conducting and following up on the meetings. These activities will include: compiling lists of groups and developing a database to record and track our contacts with them and potential CBR and SL opportunities related to each group; developing and distributing introductory materials and invitations and following up with respondents; transcribing meeting discussions; assessing participants' response to the meetings; and establishing procedures in partnership with C-CAR faculty to ensure any outcome agreements become institutionalized in C-CARs ongoing activities.

Next Steps

Through the meetings, we hope to compile a number of collectively-identified activities that C-CAR will help to coordinate between the CYF-related agencies and community groups, and faculty- including service learning and action research projects. Level II funding or other sources of support may be requested to facilitate service learning program development; student training and placement; action research projects involving collaborative relationships among agencies, community-based organizations, faculty and students addressing issues of interest to the Children, Youth and Families Consortium as identified during the proposed meetings. Ongoing assessments of these activities and C-CAR's overall success in blending service learning and community-based research in addressing the issues identified by meeting participants will be a strong emphasis of these activities.

Budget

Budget Coordinator........................Ernest K. Dishner
Telephone.................................717-948-6205
Departmental budget/Fund number.......260-10CL/1001
Administrative Area number...............073

Timeline

Last modified: 09/27/06 | Contact Webmaster