Research Project

Research Project Guide CHAD100-05 (Online)

Fall 2019

General Guidelines: • APA Format • Times New Roman font, Size 12pt • Double spaced • A minimum of 6-8 pages of content. This does not include the cover page and reference page. • Cover Page must include a Title, your name, our course name, Montclair State University, and the date • Use keywords from the textbook and articles on canvas • Utilize at least 6 scholarly sources to support your points • You must use citations, in APA format, throughout your paper. • You must include a reference page in APA format, with all books and articles used. Section 1: Knowing your issue - Introduction to the issue

• Introduce your topic/child welfare issue • Include a problem statement • Why did you chose this topic? Why is this topic important to you? • What is the current status of the issue? What are the impacts on individuals and society? • What is your goal? What do you wish to see changed? • This section should give the reader a brief understanding about the issue, who is impacted and

should grab their attention to want to read the rest of your paper. You will go into more detail about the specifics of the issue in section 3.

Section 2: Planning Blueprint • Review the activity on page 56 “Outlining Your Advocacy Plan” and create a planning blueprint.

Insert the blueprint (a table) into your final paper. • "Sketch out your initial ideas for an advocacy goal and how you might put that goal in concrete terms by developing objectives. Consider what activities would be necessary to achieve those results and who might be able to partner with you on these activities. What is a reasonable time frame for conducting these activities, and how would you know through observable milestones that the objectives had been achieved? Will you need funding to carry out your activities, and if so, how could you find possible funding sources using the strategies described in the previous section? What are your thoughts on how to evaluate whether your project has reached its goal?" (Wright, A. & Jaffe, K., 2014)

• The table should look similar to the example in your textbook. A column for: goals, objectives, activities, who, time, performance measures, cost, evaluation

Section 3: Research for Background and Impact • This section will be the longest. Here you will describe all the research you have done on the

issue. The scholarly sources you utilize should be referenced here.

• As the textbook describes, you will be conducting secondary research (Page 87). Research you can gather from scholarly articles, the internet, textbook, press releases, policy documents.

• Page 100 in your textbook gives some tips for reviewing websites to look for information on your advocacy topic

• You will not be conducting surveys or interviews.

Section 4: Preparing Effective Materials • Describe the purpose of Step 3 – Preparing Effective Materials

o What does this step entail? Why is this step important? • Create and insert a summary sheet

Section 5: Making Meetings that Work

• You will not be scheduling meetings like step 4 discusses, however, you will be detailing who the gatekeepers and decision makers are, as well as explaining how you would be reaching out to them to ask for a meeting and what information you would share in your meeting.

• TIP: you should identify real people, from real organizations or the government. You will not be contacting them for this project. This should not be hypothetical or made up names.

Section 6 Conducting Strategic Follow-up • Since you will not be getting this far in actually carrying out this project, this section will focus on

this step generally. • Why is follow up important? • How would you follow up after your meeting? How would you keep the gatekeepers and

decision makers engaged and interested in helping you with this issue? • How would you use social media in your advocacy project? What are the benefits?

Section 7: Reinforcing Successful Advocacy Outcomes

• This section can be a conclusion. • If you were to actually carry out this advocacy plan, what obstacles do you expect to

encounter? • How would you evaluate your advocacy plan? • What are your overall thoughts and feelings about conducting an advocacy project?