A New Manual for Advocates on How to Conduct Focus Groups of Low-Income Parents is Now Available!

The Institute for Child and Family Policy of the Muskie School of Public Service, University of Southern Maine has published this “how-to” manual, written by Helen Ward and Julie Atkins, as part of an initiative at the Ford Foundation to address the needs of the working poor. This publication provides the reader with an overview of focus group methodology in general but also discusses the particular issues involved in conducting focus groups of low-income parents.

The manual is intended for advocacy organizations which address issues affecting low-income families and children. These include multi-issue child advocacy organizations as well as local and statewide groups that address a single issue such as affordable housing, health care, child care or nutrition.

Focus groups have been used by advocacy organizations as an effective tool for learning more about the concerns of parents and conveying those concerns to policy makers. Focus groups can:

• enable advocacy groups to fashion an agenda that more accurately reflects the concerns of the population they seek to represent;
• provide the personal stories to supplement data in order to reach policy makers more effectively;
• inform the design of further research on a given topic;
• increase the credibility of advocates by bringing parents’ voices into the policy debate;
• act as a springboard for advocates to engage more parents in their work.

The manual covers all aspects of a focus group project from the initial planning stages through the analysis and reporting of findings. To illustrate points made in the text, “field notes” are provided which give readers real-life examples drawn from the experience of researchers at the Institute in conducting focus groups of low-income parents in a number of states.

Thanks to the generous support of the Ford Foundation, copies of the manual are available free from the Institute. Call 1-800-HELP-KID (1-800-435-7549) or send an email to clearing@usm.maine.edu indicating that you would like a copy of the focus group manual. Electronic copies (.pdf format) can also be downloaded from this web site, as well as the site for the Ford Foundation initiative, www.familyassets.net.

For more information on the project, please contact Helen Ward, Project Director at hward@usm.maine.edu or 207.780.5831.