YMCA Fairthorne Group: Community Engagement Study

FRAMEWORK

During the research, we will be taking a positivistic approach to gather information about the YMCA Fairthorne Group. The reason for using positivistic approach is to find out how the services offered YMCA Fairthorne Group affects the young people within and outside the family. YMCA group focuses on impacting the lives of young people in the community and their families through the services that they provide as charity. The strategy will consist finding out the need to engage the community and stakeholders in charity work to ensure that many young people worldwide benefit from the services. The research will focus on how the YMCA organization can improve the services offered when in collaboration with the community and stakeholders, compared to when offering charity services alone.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional design approach will be used to compare different variables during the research. The main reason for using cross section design is to ensure that data concerning YMCA engaging with the community and stakeholders will be collected at a single specific point in time and not over an extended period of time. Together with qualitative and quantitative data, cross-sectional design approach will be used to assess the attitudes and preferences of the focus groups.

PARTICIPANTS

In our research, we will target all the managers of the YMCA organization to get their information about the need to engage with the community and stakeholders in charity work. The other target group is the young people who are beneficiaries of the YMCA organization program. Few community members and stakeholders will also be involved in the research. The age of young people who will be involved in the research is between ten to eighteen years. For the other participants, such as the managers, community members, and stakeholders, age will not be focused. Both male and females will be targeted in the study. Primarily we will target a bigger number of the members of the public.

During the research, stratified sampling will be used to sample the feedbacks from different target groups. The choice for stratified sampling is because the subpopulation varies, the managers, stakeholders, members of the community and beneficiaries of YMCA organization. Stratification will be done to ensure that the members of the population are divided into homogeneous subgroups before sampling results of the study. Each element in the population will be assigned only one stratum, and none of the population element will be excluded when sampling. After stratification, systematic sampling will be used in every stratum to ensure representativeness of the sample and also reduce any errors during sampling.

MATERIALS

In our research, we will use Questionnaires to gather information from the focus groups. The questionnaires that will be used in the research will have questions that will be measuring separate variables about the engagement of YMCA organization with the community and stakeholders. The questionnaires will include both open and closed ended questions.

CLOSED-ENDED QUESTIONS

In our closed-ended section, the participants in our target groups will be given options of the possible responses from which they will choose one to be the answer. The possible responses will include all the answers are likely to be true and the meanings of the answers will not contradict to ensure that the respondents give the correct answers. In some of the questions, a Likert scale will be used in the closed ended system.

OPEN-ENDED QUESTIONS

During the study, the open-ended questions will also be included, and the respondents are given a chance to answer the questions using their own explanations. The responses will then be divided in a smaller list of the answers so that they will be easily counted during statistical analysis.

The questionnaires will be administered through the email while for the young people who are beneficiaries of the YMCA organization, they will be administered face to face. The questions will have a portion for basic demographics to help gather information if there is a difference among the demographics. The participants will also answer if they find any need for YMCA organization to be engaged with the community and stakeholders so that they can boost the services that they offer young people. The questionnaires will be sent via mail to all the other participants in the study. Other materials that will be used include mail chimp and word.

PROCEDURE

1. The participants will be selected randomly among the YMCA organization managers, members of the community, young people who have benefited from the organization and the stakeholders.
2. The open ended and closed ended questionnaires will be constructed using a word document. Each questionnaire that a participant will receive will contain five closed-ended questions and ten open-ended questions.
3. The questionnaires will be sent via the email to two managers, twenty members of the public and ten stakeholders
4. The other questionnaires will be administered face to face to twenty students who are beneficiaries of the YMCA organization.
5. The response of the participants from the questionnaires will be analyzed by making graphs for the open-ended questions and finally use trend analysis for the open-ended questions
6. At the end of the study, the analysis will be used to make recommendations concerning the engagement of YMCA organization with the community and the stakeholders.

ETHICAL CONSIDERATION

During our research, all the respondents will be given informed consent before participating in any of the activities. We will ensure that the respondents will have informed consent by explaining to them about the purpose of the research, all the contents, the duration of the study and the risks and benefits that are likely to occur. We will also inform the respondents to answer the questions that they feel comfortable answering and leave others as well as encourage them to leave the study if they feel they are no longer willing to participate. All the information given by the respondents will be kept a secret, and the names of the respondents will not appear in any questionnaire. All the respondents that will take part in the study will be assured of anonymity to safeguard their privacy.

References

• http://www.tmcsdevelopment.co.uk, T. (2017). About us - YMCA Fairthorne Group. [online]
• Ymca-fg.org. Available at: http://www.ymca-fg.org/fairthorne-group/ [Accessed 23 Feb. 2017].
• JACKSON, S. L. (2008). Research methods: a modular approach. Belmont, CA, Thomson Wadsworth.
• IMBENS, G., & LANCASTER, T. (1991). Efficient estimation and stratified sampling.
• Cambridge, Mass, Harvard Inst. of Economic Research, Harvard Univ.

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