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Pilot Project Profile - Washington and Lee UniversityLead Contacts | Issue Focus | Pilot Project Plan | Timeline | Progress Reports Lead Contacts
Issue Focus
Progress Reports
Pilot Project Plan
Overview
W&L staff and students are currently working with community partners to develop a number of projects which strongly fit the goals and underlying purposes of the PolicyOptions.org initiative. Three projects in particular will be highlighted. One ongoing project is a study of poverty in the local Rockbridge County region, requested by the City Manager of Lexington, Virginia, where W&L is located. A second emerging project will be conducted in partnership with the W&L Law School and Blue Ridge Legal Services, Inc., to study the quality of legal representation of low-income individuals in civil court cases. A third potential project, just now also emerging, is a study of local Spanish speaking immigrants designed to enhance local understanding of the needs of these individuals and families, and to create a forum through which they can begin to have greater voice in the Lexington-Rockbridge Community.
Background
The Shepherd program at W&L is centered on CBR , community-service and coursework that helps our students learn about poverty and how it impacts the lives of people living in poverty. The program hopes to develop students who can use this knowledge and sensitivity to inform their professional, personal and civic relationships with individuals who are experiencing some aspect of poverty. The program seeks to instill in its students those values that define responsible citizenship and heartfelt caring for those who are in need. Finally, through these activities, the program seeks to strengthen the capacity of local agencies to meet the needs of the poor and work towards social justice. In this regard, the CBR effort in particular seeks to engage students, faculty and community agencies in activities that will strengthen their knowledge of the poor and disenfranchised in our community. As this occurs, agencies are better equipped to consider various policy options and allocate resources to meet the needs of their clients.
Each of the three CBR projects highlighted for this proposal are deeply rooted in these values, and should provide promising opportunities for piloting the PolicyOptions.org activities as a model for future courses and events at W&L. The policy briefs template and web-based activities hold potential for disseminating CBR results to leaders within our community and to other communities across the nation. Clearly this provides an exciting forum through which students can engage in hands-on policy work designed to bring about needed change.
Following is a brief description of each project.
[1] Local Poverty
Rockbridge county resides in a section of the Shenandoah Valley that includes individuals from diverse backgrounds. While part of the larger community consists of more affluent land owners, the higher education community, and retirees from other sections of the country, a long standing portion of the community are represented by the Appalachian culture of small farmers, skilled and unskilled laborers, and an increasing number of immigrants. Conditions of poverty exist within our midst as local families seek to live in cabins and make-do shelters with dirt floors, and which lack indoor plumbing and other essentials of life that most of us take for granted. Poverty of this nature can affect housing conditions, transportation, health care, opportunities to learn in school, and access to quality legal assistance.
In order to gain a better grasp of poverty and local agencies that serve the poor, the City Manager of Lexington asked the Shepherd CBR staff at W&L to undertake a study of poverty in Rockbridge County, where Lexington is located. This study seeks to learn more about who the poor are in the region, how poverty affects them, and the services offered to meet their needs. Gaps in service and areas where greater coordination is needed are key focal points of the study. The study will unfold over two phases:
Phase 1 — Phase 1 was launched during the fall 2008 semester through an independent study being conducted by two students in conjunction with a faculty member in political science. A community-wide survey of local agencies has been administered, and focus groups with local groups have been formed. An advisory group of local agencies has also been formed, which includes the City Manager. This phase of the project will culminate December 2008 with a report and power point presentation to the City Manager and local agencies. The CBR coordinator, Don Dailey, has over 25 years in policy research and analysis. Dr. Dailey has provided training for the students conducting this research, and is helping them build the skills needed to facilitate community-wide meetings held with local agencies. All products generated from this research will be developed by the students, with guidance and support from Dr. Dailey and the participating faculty member.
Phase 2 — The second phase of the project will be launched during the Winter 2009 term through a course focused on social research methodology and journalism, led by one of our faculty in the journalism department. This course will use the results from the fall term to conduct more in-depth and specialized interviews with both participating agencies in the field and with local residents who are facing some aspect of poverty in their lives. Students will be trained and supported by the participating faculty member and by Dr. Dailey. With faculty approval, W&L would like to propose that students involved in this course draw on their research, data from the Fall term, and information gathered from the literature and the field related to local poverty to develop Policy Briefs using the Local PolicyOptions.org on-line template. The Policy Briefs will be generated both as an advisory tool for the Rockbridge community, but also for similar communities across the nation. These Briefs will continue to be updated on-line over time as this project is sustained or additional projects gather related information about emerging ideas and models or changing conditions in the field.
[2] Legal Needs of the Poor
Surveys and anecdotal reports suggest that the unmet legal needs of the poor in Virginia may be striking. There is a perception among leaders in the community that a number of poor individuals in the Rockbridge and wider Blue Ridge region of southwest Virginia do not have ready access to legal assistance with civil related cases in which they are involved, and many are not assigned an attorney in which their legal expenses are paid. Examples include debt related issues, predatory lending, contracts, home repairs, utility shut-offs without due process, consumer fraud, repossessions, garnishments, special education, school discipline, employment, family law issues, evictions, substandard housing conditions, foreclosures, public benefits exploitation of the elderly, racial discrimination in housing, wills, powers of attorney, and estate settlement. The fact that these legal needs go unmet adds additional stress to the lives of these individuals and potentially contributes to perpetuation of the cycle of poverty.
Despite the growing recognition of this problem, in Virginia there are no data documenting the problem or supporting attention to policy options that have been established in other states. To address this issue, the Shepherd CBR staff have entered into a partnership with the W&L Law School and Blue Ridge Legal Services to conduct a student led research project designed to collect data on the prevalence of civil cases in which low-income litigants are not represented by an attorney, and a comparison of results across different types of cases. The goal of this project is to document the problem and jump start a local and statewide discussion of policy options that can address the problem. This project has just been initiated and is in the initial planning stages, though all partners have signed on. Research design and access will be challenging, and Dr. Dailey will assist in developing the design and providing needed training. He will also work with others in negotiating access to the courts being studied. He is currently seeking additional partnership with the Virginia State Supreme Court.
Participating students will be recruited through service learning courses offered in the Law School and students enrolled in undergraduate poverty courses that require service learning. Volunteers from other colleges may also be recruited in order to collect data from local sites where court proceedings are occurring during the day. Student activity for this project will begin during the Winter 2009 term, and will likely unfold over the life of the PolicyOptions.org initiative through courses, internships, and activities conducted by local volunteers.
[3] Spanish Speaking Immigrants: Their Experiences, Challenges, and Needs
This project is envisioned as a series of courses or events unfolding over the next year designed to increase the local visibility of Spanish speaking immigrants new to the community. Anecdotal observations and data indicate that the number of Spanish speaking immigrants in the Rockbridge community are increasing, but little is known about this population. This student led project will involve research that helps us learn more about the experiences and needs of local Spanish speaking immigrants, potential gaps in service, and barriers to accessing services. These courses will conduct research that will strengthen the information available to local agencies that can serve them, provide immigrants an opportunity to give voice to their needs, and immerse our students in the local immigrant culture - giving them rich opportunities for conversational Spanish, exposure to social problems affecting this population, and the critical thinking skills needed to conduct independent research.
The project will begin during the Winter 2009 term through course-based service learning activities led by Harlan Beckley and Don Dailey. The Winter 09 activity will focus on establishing connections and beginning initial relationship building. Students and CBR staff will work through the local schools, local ESL services and other informal networks to make contact with local immigrants, primarily low income Spanish speakers, and begin to learn more about who they are, their experience transitioning into this community, and their challenges and needs. Most likely issues will emerge related to education, transportation, housing, health, and legal needs. Other issues might emerge which we would not be able to anticipate. This provides an opportunity for discovery and learning. As much as anything the Winter 09 activity will involve a first step in forming trusting relationships and engaging in conversational research that establishes an initial base of data for planning future courses and events unfolding over three phases:
Phase 1 — will focus on making initial contact, providing help where needed, and building trust.
Phase 2 — will focus on collecting data through interviews, observations, and documents. Journals will be collected by students and community partners working together as they connect with local immigrants. The journals will tell the story of the immigrants through their own voices. Some stories may be captured using digital media and video.
Phase 3 — will be designed to support dissemination through student policy briefs, as part of the PolicyOptions.org initiative.
Faculty from Spanish, Sociology, Politics and Latin American Studies are being recruited to participate in this research and as advisors.
Deliberative Democracy Forum
Forums that facilitate discussion and deliberation around the key issues and policy options will be developed for each project following a common model, consisting of the following features:
[1] Poverty Study — The poverty study is being supported by a local advisory group of agencies and faculty. Co-learning and deliberation naturally occurs as local agencies learn from CBR research and proposed policy options, and as these groups provide guidance and feedback throughout the life of the project. For the poverty study, an event will occur in December or January for presenting research findings and launching policy discussions among local leaders. At this point Phase 2 of the study will kick-in, leading to a local Learning Institute and the Policy Briefs for the wider field. The Learning Institute will be a multi-faceted event designed to build and support momentum around this work and the policy options emerging from the research.
The project advisory group is partnering with Shepherd CBR staff and students in planning the Learning Institute for the Spring of 2009. The Institute will serve as a forum for deliberating on results from CBR projects and ideas-models from the field. This forum will provide multiple opportunities for community sharing and learning around the poverty study and the issues and models that will be outlined in the Policy Briefs. It is hoped the Learning Institute will become an annual event that lives beyond the life of this project and the Local PolicyOptions.org pilot initiative. W&L students will facilitate this meeting, with Dr. Dailey’s support.
[2] Study of Legal Needs — Forums for deliberative democracy will follow the same model as designed for the poverty study, but must be tailored to fit the culture of decision-making within the legal field in Virginia. In order to effectively engage the legal system around these issues three sets of advisory groups may be actively recruited by the participating partners:
Partners will jointly identify and plan key events for rolling out research findings and policy options to be considered. In planning these events partners will draw on their expertise, knowledge of context, and local networks to build policy interest in the project. A report on progress and emerging issues will be presented at the 2009 Learning Institute. Initial discussion of policy options may be generated.
[3] Study of Immigrants — Again, the same overall model proposed for the poverty and legal needs projects will be implemented.
A project-based advisory group of community leaders and faculty will provide guidance and feedback throughout the life of the project. This group will study the policy options and make recommendations for strengthening community services for local immigrants.
The research and policy recommendations will used to empower local immigrants and give them voice in the community. One effort will involve forming local grass roots forums in local churches, businesses, and other civic venues where immigrant leaders may begin to participate in informal discussion and decision-making around the issues most important to them. Another effort will focus on informing local immigrants of services available to meet the needs they have identified, and providing student led service learning activities that address barriers immigrants may encounter in seeking to access those services.
Similar to the study of legal needs, a report on progress and emerging issues will be presented at the 2009 Learning Institute, and initial discussion of policy options may occur. If appropriate, more well developed research findings and policy options generated from both studies will be reviewed during in the 2010 Learning Institute.
Editorial/Advisory Board
The Local PolicyOptions.org initiative will be housed within the Shepherd CBR office, and coordinated by Don Dailey and a student intern. Dr. Dailey is a Visiting Associate Professor of Education and Community-based Learning. He has written and edited policy briefs for national organizations and state/local governments across the nation. Shepherd CBR policy operations and editorial responsibilities will be guided by Harlan Beckley, Director of the Shepherd Program.
The student intern and Dr. Dailey and will work with a group of representative faculty and community leaders as an Editorial Board in reviewing and editing final policy briefs. As much as possible faculty and community agency reviewers will focus on those briefs most relevant to their expertise and interests. While a small group may participate as standing members of the Editorial Board for quality control, faculty and community members may also be recruited for particular briefs or projects in order to draw on their expertise/insight. Faculty teaching courses that generate the policy briefs will review and grade the briefs before they are submitted to the Editorial Board, and may be recruited to serve on the Board for those briefs.
Timeline
Poverty
Fall 2008
Winter-Spring 2009
Summer 2009
Fall 2009
Winter-Spring 2010
Summer 2010 June-August
Legal Needs
Fall 2008
Winter-Spring 2009
Summer 2009
Fall 2009
Winter-Spring 2010
Immigrants
Fall 2008
Winter–Spring 2009
Summer 2009
Fall 2010
Winter-Spring 2010
Evaluation and Planning
Summer 2009
Winter-Spring 2010
Second Community Forum on Poverty
Winter-Spring 2010
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