Please read below for this meaningful (and compensated) opportunity from the MA Dept. of Public Health:
The MA Home Visiting Initiative and the Maternal Child Health Block Grant, both at the MA Department of Public Health, are undertaking a statewide Needs Assessment, facilitated by research partners Tufts Interdisciplinary Evaluation Research (TIER). The overarching goal of the needs assessments is to use a racial equity approach to gather a deeper understanding of the needs and strengths of families, young children, and youth/adolescents (including children with special health care needs) to gather to inform statewide priorities and program delivery.
A key part of our qualitative data collection includes a Community Evaluator (CE) component. Facilitated by TIER, the Community Evaluator approach is grounded in Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) models that emphasizes the importance of:
1) Placing knowledge production in the hands of those most directly affected by the work;
2) Forming academic-community partnerships that are genuinely based on a commitment to co-learning;
3) Building evaluation capacity in communities (training community members in research); and
4) Proposing program and policy solutions that represent communities’ goals and aspirations.
In addition, the long term goal of TIER is to also invite CE’s to join the TIER Community Advisory Council and continue to work with Tufts on evaluations and research projects into the future.
TIER will be identifying 10 community applicants to join the Community Evaluator Team.
Community Evaluator activities include:
1. Participating in a two-day training on participatory research approaches at Tufts University
2. After the training, CEs will be responsible, with support from TIER staff, for organizing, co-facilitating, and analyzing data from a focus group to be held in their respective community.
3. TIER and DPH will also consult with the CEs on other evaluation activities to ensure our interpretation of findings is valid and useful from their important perspectives.
4. Participating CEs will each receive a $3,000 stipend to attend the training and conduct the focus group.
5. TIER will also cover lodging and travel costs (if any) and provide childcare during evening trainings, meetings, and focus groups.
6. More information on this project and the TIER CE model can be found on: https://sites.google.com/view/tier-community-evaluators/home
Additional considerations for recruits are:
- 10 CEs: Only 10 CEs will be selected, which means that unfortunately not all applicants who apply will be selected.
- Selection Process | Eligibility Minimum Qualifications:
· Lives and/or work in Massachusetts
· Has past or current experience either working for or being a member of the target populations of any family groups
· Expressed interest in working on behalf of children, youth, and families
· Completed the application
