Process
& Methodology
Introduction
This document is the product of a collaborative effort among various local and state organizations that invest resources to meet community needs. There has been a growing trend in the funds allocation field to reduce redundancy in community planning efforts, especially when assessing the needs of the community. Many institutions allocate public and private funds to address the critical issues facing local communities. While strategic approaches to addressing those issues will vary based on institutional history and preferences, the need for a solid base of facts and information about community needs, upon which funding decisions can be made, is universal. Thus, the Funding Partners for this study agreed to the collection of common community needs data which could be utilized by each partner and their internal planning processes, and the community in general for its public education and other planning efforts.
Scope of the Study
The United Way of Southwestern Indiana serves Vanderburgh, Warrick and Spencer counties and thus individual planning processes were conducted in each county.
Study Funding Partners
The United Way of Southwestern Indiana took the lead in facilitating the collaboration among the various local/state funding entities. The following institutions agreed to sponsor the study:
The 1999 – 2000 Comprehensive Assessment Steering Committee consisted of representatives from the Funding Partners and several research experts.
The United Way Allocations Panels for Warrick and Spencer counties were used as the study committees for each respective county, with other citizens and agency representatives added to the subcommittees.
Study Design
The Steering Committee agreed to a research design based on previous United Way needs assessments and additional elements deemed valuable to the current process. The expected products of this research included:
Ø Vision statements of where we want to be as a community;
Ø Agreed-upon goals that will help reach our community visions;
Ø Specific outcome measures to help determine if we are successful at meeting our goals and visions;
Ø Strategies for reaching our visions and goals.
Significant Changes from Previous Studies
This study was based on a research model used by St. Mary’s Health Services to study the issue of “Supportive Care for the Dying”. Strategic planning about community needs can flow from an analysis of factual data or from an understanding of the first-person experiences of people affected by the defined issues. In the ideal world, strategic planning exercises will combine the knowledge about how these issues play out in people’s lives with the hard yet impersonal data about the extent and nature of the problem being studied.
In many community processes, the “personal knowledge” dimension is often left to service professionals to bring such knowledge to the community planning discussion. The new model, based on St. Mary’s Health Services research project, sought to involve the non-service professional volunteer in a deeper appreciation of the experiences of people affected by the community issues. The method for accomplishing this “connection” between volunteers and people in need was the use of focus groups, verbatim transcripts, and volunteer review and analysis of the focus group participant first-person accounts of their lives.
b.
Strategic Planning Process
Previous United Way needs studies produced volumes of independent information regarding community needs but no process to analyze and discuss the findings, nor attempt to develop consensus plans of action for addressing the critical unmet community needs. This current study extended the community planning function to include the development of detailed strategic plans based on a review of the collected factual and qualitative data, and an agreed-upon set of community visions, outcomes and strategies. The development of these plans could serve as guides to the funding decisions for the various Funding Partners.
The first step in the assessment process was to seek the community’ s perceptions about the most critical issues facing our communities (all 3 counties). The United Way facilitated “public input” strategies in each county to identify critical issues for eventual inclusion in a county-wide assessment survey, additional efforts were conducted in Vanderburgh County through four (4) focus group sessions of the general public and client populations.
Each county’s process for identifying critical issues was slightly different and is reported in each county section.
Critical Issue Survey
All identified critical issues were edited down to a manageable number in each county and placed on a Critical Issue Survey. The purpose of the survey was to obtain respondent perceptions about the importance of each issue to the respective county. The results were tabulated and rank-ordered and are reported in each county section.
Qualitative Research
Approach: Focus Groups
This research process was committed to analyzing not only the factual, statistical data regarding community needs, but also the first-person stories of people affected by the identified critical issues; to recognize the importance of specific community problems and to fully understand the human dimensions of these issues as they play out in people’s lives.
The qualitative research process was implemented in five phases:
1) Subcommittee definitions
Each subcommittee selected and further defined one critical issue that was to be the focus of further study and strategic planning. After the issue was refined and operationalized, the subcommittee defined what type of individuals to include in the focus group research.
The study budget allocated resources to allow eight (8) focus groups per subcommittee. The subcommittee had to define the groups it believed were critical to understanding the nature of the problem, as defined by the subcommittee. In order to achieve some level of redundancy (recognizing the inherent biasing that occurs from small sample focus groups), the study was structured to have two (2) focus groups for each category of people the subcommittee chose for inclusion. Thus, for example, if the subcommittee wanted “single mothers” as a category, there would be two (2) single parent focus groups conducted. With this design, the subcommittees were allowed to select four (4) categories of people to include in their focus group research.
2) Participant Recruitment:
The subcommittees defined the four (4) categories of focus group participant they desired. United Way conducted background research delineating the demographic characteristics of the populations defined by the subcommittees. These profiles were used as targets for recruiting within the focus group categories. (Demographic targets for each group are included in each Subcommittee Report).
A solicitation letter was sent out to all non-profits, including those participating in the study process, seeking their assistance in finding individuals to participate in the focus groups (See Attachment A). The agencies either recruited their clients directly and referred them to the study or merely passed out information fliers and let the individuals contact United Way directly.
In most cases each participant was paid a $25.00 stipend for recruitment. In some cases, where recruitment was difficult (teen male parents, child abuse/neglect adult-victims, and elderly with substance abuse problem) the stipend was raised to $50.00.
All participants were asked to sign a consent form for participation in the focus group. For any youth under age 18, a parental consent form was also required (See Attachment B).
3) Focus Group Moderation:
All focus groups were conducted by professional focus group moderators:
Dr. David Westhuis
Social Work Department
University of Southern Indiana
Dr. Martha Rakse
Social Work Department
University of Southern Indiana
Jim Knauff
Gore/Knauff Research Associates
Dr. Marie Driever
Providence/Portland Medical Center
Mary Schoessler
Providence/Portland Medical Center
The objective of the focus groups was to elicit the first-person stories of people affected by the problem: how did these “issues” play out in their lives; how did it effect them or their families; how did they respond to it; and where did they get support to help them through their troubles? These questions were the general guide for the focus group moderators. The moderators were also responsible for encouraging each participant to share his/her “story” with the group – which often required follow-up questions to achieve sufficient detail for understanding.
4) Transcript Production
Each focus group was audio and (in some cases) video taped. The Gore/Knauff research facility was used whenever feasible. The facility was on a major Evansville street with sufficient parking and a focus group room which was comfortable, observable and properly wired for audio and videotaping. However, in some instances, the focus groups were conducted outside of the Gore/Knauff facility (Spencer and Warrick Counties, and most substance abuse focus groups). In these groups, only audiotapes were produced.
All participants were made aware of the audio and video taping of the focus group and attested to their awareness in their consent form.
The purpose of the recording was to produce accurate verbatim transcripts of their focus group discussions. The moderator spent some time explaining the purpose of the study, the use of the transcripts and how their stories would help the community better understand the issues they were to discuss.
The audio and videotapes were turned over to paid professional transcribers who produced written verbatim transcripts for each focus group. The transcripts identified the focus group category, the time, date, location of the focus group, and the paid moderator. Each line of transcript was numbered for ease of reference in the focus group analysis stage.
In order to protect the anonymity of the participants, the transcriber assigned fictitious names to each participant in the transcript (additional alterations to some of the person’s identifying details were made by staff in this final report, to further protect the anonymity of the participants).
In the production of the transcripts, it was recognized that sometimes the audio quality was poor or that similar voices were difficult to discern. Thus, the transcriber had to interpret the sound within the context of the conversation. In many cases, the conversation was recorded as “inaudible”. The subcommittees understood the possible “margin of error” within the production of the transcripts, and took this into account when confronted with illogical events in the person’s story.
5) Transcript Review Process
Subcommittee members were invited to participate in the transcript review process. They were asked to sign a confidentiality form limiting their discussion of the story details to other members of the study committee (See Attachment C). Members were assigned to one of four (4) Review Teams (4 – 6 members each). The responsibilities of these Review Teams were as follows:
Ø Read and review each assigned transcript (2 transcripts per Review Team);
Ø Each Review Team member was assigned a specific person’s story within the transcript, and was asked to summarize the story;
Ø Identify the common issues present in many of the stories;
Ø Begin to convert the identified issues into outcome statements: in what ways would we like to see changes in the people’s lives?
Strategic Planning Process
The purpose of the strategic planning was to gather quantitative and qualitative data about each defined critical issue and develop a set of program outcomes and strategies to effectively address the issue. The subcommittee members were asked to bring their wealth of experience and knowledge about the issue to the discussions, and focus their attention on the issues defined and clarified by the focus group research, and the data presented by the factual research.
United Way staff collected and summarized local and national data/research on the nature of each critical issue, as defined by the subcommittees. The research reports included prevalence and incidence data, information and research on causal variables for each problem, and information about the demographics of people affected by the problem and the ways in which they are affected. The information was to provide a research-based complement to the focus group qualitative research: were the stories we heard in the focus group typical of most people so defined by the issue? Or were they mere anomalies due to the small group sizes and possible selection biases?
Each subcommittee report includes the factual data report presented to the subcommittee at the beginning of their strategic planning exercise. In some cases, subcommittee members suggested additional data to include in the final report.
Members of each Review Team reported their transcript review findings to the full subcommittee at the beginning of the strategic planning process. The volunteer summarized the issue findings identified by the review team process.
After each team presented its findings, and the subcommittee considered the factual data presented by staff, the subcommittee identified common issues present in all the qualitative and quantitative data and began the process of converting the issues into specific program outcomes.
The strategic planning process was to develop a set of defined outcomes and strategies within a Logic Model which simply defined what we (as a community) want to do, why we want to do it, and how it will be achieved. This Logic Model would involve four levels of conceptualization:
1. Vision Statements: a positive statement of purpose about the changes we want to see in our community specifically addressing the “community outcome”. It should answer the “why” question: why do we want to affect the community outcome? And how would that change look?
2. Community Outcome: the issue (s) identified by the community in the critical issue survey converted into a measurable and positive outcome.
3. Program Outcome: the issues identified by the focus group transcripts as the critical elements to addressing the subcommittee issue. The program outcomes are the building blocks to achieve the community outcome (s).
4. Strategies: for each program outcome, these are the specific strategies, services, approaches, programs, legislation or other specific problem-solving ideas for reaching the program outcomes.
Each subcommittee developed the specifics of their Logic Model that are contained in each Subcommittee Report.
Upon completion of the Logic Model, the subcommittee members were asked to assess the relative importance of each program outcome and each strategy listed under the program outcomes. Subcommittee members were asked to allocate 100% of new community resources among: 1) Program outcomes; and 2) Strategies for each program outcome.
The purpose of this assessment was to give guidance to United Way and other Funding Partners for the best allocation of new financial resources to meet the needs of the community. The assessment would rank the most desirable program outcomes and the most effective strategies under each program outcome. The results of this assessment are included in each subcommittee report.