Reflections on Our Research Project

by Charmane Hayman

Our professor challenged us to read numerous publications, articles, and books regarding the disparity factor of community technology centers in central Texas specifically Austin. After reading various texts, a social work model for community activism and programming, in my mind, resembled some of the hypotheses for the community technology centers we evaluated.

Upon viewing the characteristics in our CTC write-ups I believed they are in alignment with a social work model for community-based organizations. The Community Practice model [1], I feel, mirrors the CTC's in our research study. (see below)

Following are some reflective illustrations of these characteristics observed during our field study.

Desired Outcome

Each CTC has grass-roots origins with goals of preparing citizens to make use of social and economic investments. For instance, American Youth-Works C-Corp's initial programming was geared toward prisoner outreach, and learned illiteracy was significant in this population. AYW has since included literacy programs to include GED, Leadership, Horticulture and technology programs to prepare their clients for personal and professional success. In addition, this organization started and remains a charter school.

Another illustration is with the Austin Eastside Story Foundation. They offer a variety of programs, relevant to the ages of the participants. The organization primarily offers after-school programs that offer cultural activities, art, sports and math and science activities. The organization's origin for programming started with the after-school program and has grown to include the Foundation, which focuses primarily on technology.

In contrast, a couple of CTC's we evaluated may not be considered as grass-roots such as Terrazas Library and Bedichek. However, the one common theme is that all of the CTC's have an objective to empower citizens to make choices that affect their social and economic well-being.

Systems Targeted for Change

One common theme for systems targeted for change among all CTC's are the community citizens, and accomplishment of that goal is through an organization's comprehensive programming. For example, in addition to technology programming both Austin Learning Academy and Tech Tots offers parenting classes. In addition, both Our Lady and Sweet Home Missionary Baptist church offer technology programming within the setting of spiritual enrichment and nurturing. Lastly, Foundations Communities offers technology programming within the setting of promoting affording housing and teaching the skills of acquiring quality home dwellings and teaching the importance of sustaining their community s property value. Each CTC offers various programming types with the intent of evoking change and growth among the community members they serve.

Primary Constituency

Another common theme of our research data is many of the CTC participants are low-income, from a marginalized or oppressed population groups in the Austin city limits. Some of the programming plans have been stalled due to language and/or cultural barriers in the Hispanic community. Case in point: Tech Tots has a deficit in mentors for their participants, thus impeding the program s progress.

Scope of Concern

Data revealed that overwhelming all CTCs examined had the common themes of improving participants income resources, social support development, and improve basic education and leadership skills. For instance, American Youth Works has leadership classes for its youth along with GED classes. The Austin Learning Academy offers GED and ESL classes and promotes civic participation through informal discussion about voter s rights, especially for immigrant citizens. Another illustration is Austin Eastside Story; the workforce program conducts sessions on acquiring job skills prior to beginning any technology program. In addition, parents are required to attend fieldtrips with the children, assist with after-school and summer activity programming and mandatory volunteering with after-school program. Furthermore, participants in both Eastside Story programs have a social worker available to discuss any concerns that he or she might have in an effort to reduce barriers that would prevent a participant from completing the program (e.g. information on housing, child care centers with non-traditional hours, etc).

CTC Administrator and Staff Roles

Each CTC revealed that the administrators and staff take on various roles depending on the size and/or programming nature of the organization. For example, Reverend Carrington is the minister, executive director, teacher, mentor, etc. for his church technology and after-school program. In contrast, the Austin Learning Academy has an Executive Director and staff for administrative and program facilitation. Although these organizations differ on that aspect the administrators of both organizations negotiate to acquire equipment, promote their organization, teach the participants (at varying degrees), plan for future endeavors and manage the overall operation.

Future Plans

ALA's Executive Director expressed the desire to acquire a social worker to provide services similar to that provided at Eastside Story. Tech Tots is in dire need of Hispanic mentors, likewise Our Lady in need of funding. Perhaps the contents of our toolkit may provide some guidance, leads or resources to assist these CTC's will meet these objectives.

Afterthoughts

One thing is definite, community organization and development is not for the faint of heart it's very hard work. Also, participatory research is challenging, as is research design, particularly designing questionnaires. It involves an extensive amount of interaction with the community members being studied and the people providing service for the community members. Basically, we need more time in the PRP's to adequately do thorough research.

We discussed the value of collaborating with other school's to include a comprehensive approach to this policy issue. The inclusion of school's like social work, sociology and psychology would bring in different perspectives that may not be questioned in the school of public policy. In addition, they will have insight and information that the public policy school would not have to repeat.

There are schools that have incorporated such collaborative approaches on the UT Austin campus. For example, Graduate Studies, Intellectual Entrepreneurship program. The IE program also is committed to developing innovative, collaborative, and sustainable ways for universities to work with their communities to solve complex problems.

Furthermore, this program's philosophy resembles some of our discussions regarding community ownership and empowerment. For instance, the Program's goal is to empower students to own their education, making informed choices about where and how to use it. Some of the goals include:

• Promoting entrepreneurial thinking in all spheres of society.
• Implementing collaborative models of discovery and action in the academic and public/private sectors.
• Encouraging genuine reform in higher education: increased access to the intellectual assets of the university; greater responsiveness by the university to the needs of the community; and additional cross-disciplinary initiatives.

Finally, I would like to see future research investigate and evaluate the difference in technology usage between socio-economic groups and how that usage may affect future educational and professional pursuits. For example, one article I read mentioned that students from higher socio-economic levels used the Internet for research and homework, compared with lower socio-economic students who used it primarily to play games and/or search for music or favorite music artists. See detailed discussion in my editorial section, Editorial 7, http://www.charmanechronicles.com.

Notes

[1] Netting, F.E., Peter Kettner and Steven McCurty, Social Work Macro Practice, 2nd edition, (Longman: New York, 1998), pp.120-121.