FACT Awards 2002 Grants to Research Community Vitality and Youth Development

List and description of 2002 grant awards

Learn about FACT's grant program and research projects

Studies show that minority youth are less likely to participate in and reap the benefits of positive out-of-school activities. A new FACT-funded research project in Detroit will help us understand what hinders or attracts African-American, Latino, and other ethnic youth to recreational or educational opportunities.

Learn more about the goals of each of the five 2002 FACT research grants below. . .

Families and Communities Together (FACT) Coalition is pleased to announce the award of more than $147,000 in grants to five new research projects focused on enhancing community vitality and youth development.

The projects use creative methods for addressing child, family and community issues, such as building social capital, creating a sense of community in urban neighborhoods, examining urban youths' perceptions of out-of-school activities, and helping parents of preschoolers with severe behavior problems.

"This year's grant process underscored the fact that innovative children, youth, and family research ideas abound at MSU," said Cheryl Booth, FACT co-director, "It is wonderful to see the tremendous energy focused on creating working research partnerships with communities and across colleges that address child, family, and community needs."

The projects are led by collaborative university-community teams that include faculty from eight MSU departments, campus and county Extension staff, and community partners. The research will take place in eight counties across the state: Branch, Clinton, Eaton, Ingham, Kent, Muskegon, Saginaw, and Wayne.

Three of the five grants will add to FACT's new focus area on family engagement and community vitality. Working at both the neighborhood and broader community level, these projects will contribute to our understanding of social networks, civic participation, coalition building, and community development.

The 2002 awards are part of FACT's annual competitive grant program that has invested more than $1 million in research and outreach projects in 25 counties throughout Michigan. The program's goal is to seed MSU's interdisciplinary research efforts that bring university resources to bear on critical social issues.

"We are excited to see how FACT projects from previous years have grown into federal and foundation funded initiatives and have impacted scholarship and communities," said Janet Bokemeier, FACT CO-director, "We are confident that the 2002 grants will also create important impacts for youth and families in communities."

Each year, the FACT grant proposals are reviewed in a rigorous NIH-styled process by a panel of distinguished campus and Extension faculty, who carefully read and rate the proposals, engage in a lively and thoughtful discussion, and determine which projects best merit funding. FACT thanks the panel for its hard work and dedication.

"As we continue the RFP process, we will work toward quality projects that engage multiple departments and communities to help us make a difference in the lives of Michigan families," said Booth.

FACT funded projects for 2002 are:

Creating Block-Level Sense of Community in Urban Neighborhoods
John Schweitzer, MSU Urban Affairs Program; Rene Rosenbaum, MSU Department of Resource Development; Annalie Campos, MSU Urban Affairs Program; Judy Gardi, Citywide Network Center.
$28,624

This collaborative study will examine how a sense of community can be created or strengthened in urban areas, one block at a time. While there is a body of research showing the negative consequences of community breakdowns on youth and families, little work has been done to demonstrate how struggling communities can regain cohesion, promote civic participation, and improve the overall health and quality of life for families. This project will provide valuable practical information for community specialists, neighborhood leaders and residents, and will generate knowledge about the best kinds of interventions that foster community vitality.

Parents' Explanatory Models for Severe Disruptive Behavior of Preschool Children
Marsha D. Rappley, M.D., MSU Department of Pediatrics and Human Development; Barry Kaufman, Ph.D., Children's Services, Community Mental Health; Judy Pugh, Ph.D., MSU Department of Anthropology; M. Fran Jozefowicz, Ph.D., Children's Services, Community Mental Health.
$29,082

Parenting preschoolers is a demanding job. When those preschoolers exhibit disruptive behaviors, parenting becomes even more of a challenge. While 8% of children in day care or preschool in the greater Lansing area are identified as having severe behavior problems, another 6% are at risk or have already been "expelled." In addition, these young children are increasingly receiving psychotropic medication. To understand how parents and families respond to and cope with such behavioral problems researchers will collect first hand data about parental behavior.

Social Capital as a Mobilization Strategy
Ken Frank, Ph.D., MSU Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology, and Special Education; Mary B. McDonald, Family Coordinating Council; L. Annette Abrams, MSU Outreach Partnerships
$29,972

Social capital is defined as "the potential to access resources thorough social relations." Relying on social ties, community members share not only friendships but also information, financial resources and durable goods. This informal and voluntary coordination of resources among people is a valuable, though often incalculable asset to communities. In an effort to gauge the value and coordinate the flow of social capital, MSU and community partners have developed a model to represent the distribution of social capital in Muskegon County. Using this model they will study how subgroups, like community service agencies, coordinate their efforts.

The Michigan Families Project: A Study of Faculty - Citizen Social Capital Development in an Engaged Partnership
David R. Imig, MSU Department of Family & Child Ecology; Theresa Silm, MSU Extension Clinton County; Jodi Spicer, MSU Extension CYF Programs; Ruth Miller, MSU Extension Saginaw County
$30,000

The Internet offers a tremendous opportunity to bring together the collective work and knowledge of children, youth and family organizations in the state of Michigan. To realize this potential, members of the Michigan Families Project will use their FACT grant for two purposes: 1) To establish an Internet-based survey collection system for use by a statewide network of children youth and family partners, and 2) To examine how social capital factors into engaged university-community partnerships and information exchange.

Youth Perceptions of Structured Out-Of-School Experiences: Comparisons of Various Ethnic Groups in a Large Metropolitan American City
Francisco Villarruel, Ph.D., MSU Department of Family & Child Ecology; Joanne G. Keith, Ph.D., MSU Department of Family & Child Ecology; Annelise Carlton-Hug, Ph.D., MSU Department of Family & Child Ecology
$29,430

Numerous studies have shown that structured out-of-school experiences have positive effects on the youth who participate in them. However, these studies also find that minority youth are less likely to reap these benefits because they participate in these activities less often. This research project will try to determine what is hindering African-American, Arab-Muslim, Arab-Chaldean, and Hispanic/Latino youth from taking a more active part in out-of-school recreational or educational opportunities and what draws them to the activities they do participate in.

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