Method
Qualitative
Setting: Madeline’s House
Madeline’s House is a domestic violence safe haven in central Virginia. The home admits women and their children for 30 days to provide safety and a safe plan to re-enter the community. The stay can be petitioned up to 90 days. During this time period, the women are given resources such as “counseling, crisis intervention, advocacy, referrals to legal aid, education, evidence recovery, and shelter” (SCVP). Madeline’s House also offers child services as long as the child is under 18. These services include counseling for children who have experienced or witnessed trauma, and educational services.
Participant Recruitment
I have been able to recruit the participants by staying in contact with the staff at Madeline’s House throughout the duration of the planning, creation and delivery of the activities. During the initial interviews with the staff at Madeline’s House, they concluded that the presented activities would produce family engagement between the mothers and their child/children. The staff agreed to stay in contact with me throughout the distribution and partaking in the activities.
Participants
Participants are the staff at Madeline’s House. The staff include, but are not limited to, the education coordinators, volunteers, and anyone that has witnessed families participating in the activities.
Data Collection
I will be conducting one on one interviews with the staff at Madeline’s House. My interviews are scheduled to last around 45 minutes to and hour each. I plan to meet each of the participants individually at a local coffee shop near a small college in central Virginia. I plan to have open conversations rather than structured interviews in order to gain the most information about how the activities facilitated family engagement and involvement. The planned interview questions were created to acquire information that answers my hypothesis (refer to Appendix A).
Analysis
I plan to record the responses using a electronic recording tool with permission of the participant. If the participant wishes to not be recorded, then I will hand write the responses in the interview. I then will transcribe the interview into a word document without any information in which would give away any personal attributes of the participants. Using the transcript of the interviews I will find patterns between the the responses of the participants. I will then analyze the patterns of my interviews to determine if the trauma informed activities facilitated family engagement and involvement.