Jackie Ader

REFLECTION A: Putting your Research into Context

PART I: Describe and explain your research project. The research project I am working on this semester is called Project MENTOR. Project MENTOR is a collaborative effort between Chicago State University (the lead institution), Loyola University Chicago, University of Illinois Chicago, Chicago Department of Family Support Services, and Hyde Park Academy High School. The Project MENTOR program began in Summer, 2010, offering its services to approximately 40 African American Hyde Park Academy High School freshman. Project MENTOR is an effort focused on the development, implementation, and evaluation of a health-focused, intensive positive youth development program, and is primarily interested in identifying ways by which such a program can positively impact youth at environmental and personal risk. The study follows a randomized research design in which 40 youth are a part of the program and 40 are part of a comparison group in order to increase the reliability of measured program effects. The program is geared towards addressing the many challenges faced by minority adolescents in urban, low-income communities. Adolescence is a difficult, stressful time for everyone, but in this type of vulnerable environment adolescents are more likely to experience violence, parental separation or absence, poor nutrition, increased health risks, and lack of physical activity (Miller et al. 2007; Merton et al. 2009). Project MENTOR has taken the initiative to intervene in the Woodlawn community in an effort to reduce high risk behaviors related to these negative experiences and strengthen protective or resiliency factors in order to empower these adolescents to succeed in life. When youth and their families have access to appropriate supports and services, tailored to their specific circumstances and needs, resilience is

Jackie Ader

fostered and healthy transitions from adolescence into adulthood can occur even in these vulnerable environments (National Research Council Institute of Medicine, 2002). Thus, the Project MENTOR program encompasses a wide range of support resources and services to assist the youth and families in this community. The multi-dimensional program offered by Project MENTOR includes individualized case-management services, group mentoring focused on building life skills, one-on-one mentoring with college students, recreational and health-promotion activities, academic tutoring, guidance for career and college exploration, and media and community-based research training (DuBois et al., 2010). Participating youth receive case management, including risk-screening assessments and service referrals. The case managers are available 24/7 and work to integrate families into the program. The group mentoring sessions focus on personal and collective accountability, emotional development, positive relationship building, critical thinking skills, healthy diet and physical activity, conflict resolution, and community engagement. At the core of the Project Mentor program is the one-on-one mentoring component. Through this part of the program, the student participants are paired with adult volunteers recruited from Chicago universities and the local community to provide them with positive adult relationships. The students receive fitness coaching and assistance with healthy lifestyle planning. This aspect of the program is primarily run through Loyola University Chicago. In addition to the development of a mentoring relationship with an adult volunteer, students are offered sports opportunities, such as running in a 5K race, and academic tutoring on a weekly basis. Lastly, students participate in participatory action research projects through which they learn leadership skills by researching, documenting, and presenting information related to health and well-being in their community. This project is unique in its objective to,

Jackie Ader

through the development and evaluation of the many dimensions of Project MENTOR, create an empirically-based, replicable model that can be delivered to similar communities in the form of a user-friendly program manual. Project MENTOR has been active for almost three years now and the students, who have continued their involvement since its start, are now in their junior year at Hyde Park Academy High School. The Project MENTOR program is now in the end of its implementation stage, it is now time to start compiling and reviewing all the data collected. This year I will be assisting Dr. Pryce and her fellow Project MENTOR colleagues in the analysis and evaluation of the Project MENTOR program. The Project evaluation will be led by Dr. David DuBois and Dr. Pryce will be closely supervising my involvement with the research project. The evaluation process will examine the levels and quality of the strategies and practices used in the program, the levels of participation within each program component, and whether the program made a positive difference or progress in the youth areas targeted for change. We will be evaluating the data retrieved from Implementation Assessment Forms, feedback and satisfaction surveys, attendance at events and services (quantitative), and other assessment tools used throughout the past few years and the duration of Project MENTOR. After a thorough evaluation, our plan is to create an immensely effective program to be replicated and implemented for more of the underprivileged, urban adolescent population.

Jackie Ader

PART II: How might a researcher in your area of interest approach the issue from a methodology other than your own? My area of interest is underprivileged, urban adolescents and their development. More specifically, identifying ways by which a youth development program can positively impact youth at environmental and personal risk. Although I believe the approach being used in the Project MENTOR research is very effective, other methodologies could be used to study the same research question. For example, rather than implementing an adolescent development program, researchers could evaluate multiple programs already existing in the Chicagoland area. Instead of doing a longitudinal 4-year study, researchers could analyze several programs in one year, evaluate each program, and then compile all the evaluations to create the most efficient adolescent development program to be replicated. In this methodology, researchers would collect data on various services and happenings in each individual program they observe. This data might include qualitative interviews with adolescent and staff participants, grade records, obtaining descriptions of services offered, attendance records, etc. Here a researcher would be acting more as observer as participant, visiting the research sites only several times in order to conduct interviews and make brief observations. The rest of the data collected would predominately come from the staff working with the adolescents. This could pose a problem regarding program biases; staff members may present data a certain way in order to make their program look better. However, this would be a larger, possibly more generalizable study format because it would not be looking at just the single case of one specific program (Project MENTOR). Still, evaluating multiple programs can be time consuming and costly, trying to visit and interact with each program in order to collect valid data. The short length of this study would answer the

Jackie Ader

research question much sooner, but I am not sure how accurate or effective this more rushed, non-community-based research methodology is in comparison the methodology of Project MENTOR.