By Steve Carlton-Ford

This past summer, I started to get involved with the AMOS supported project “Voices of Cincinnati.” That project is focused on identifying people whose voices are rarely heard and helping them identify their strengths and capabilities. Many of these folks simply don’t have steady jobs and steady incomes and need help getting into the job market. For others, English is a second language, a fact that makes adjusting to life in Cincinnati difficult.

UC Graduate Students partner with Local Organizations

UC graduate students in Sociology’s course “Logic of Inquiry” have been gearing up to conduct focus groups for three quite different organizations—Church of Our Savior, CityLink Center, and HELP—all of which are affiliated with AMOS.

Because each organization works with people of different backgrounds, the students have been adapting generic instructions for administering focus groups to best suit each organization’s needs. Also, the size and shape of the rooms at each location, as well as the number of participants, are different. So, the questions and procedures at each location need to be setup to account for these differences as well.

Learning Curve and Rewards

At this point in the class, the students are getting a good sense of the frustrations and rewards of designing question guides and procedures that should, fairly soon, result in useful information for each organization and will also help AMOS better understand the needs of these three organizations.