so excited you are here!! 

This site is your guide to the community researcher training! We are beyond excited you have joined our team and hope this is only the beginning of your journeys as researchers! Watch this short video about the training and what to expect. 

Why?

The purpose of this training is to prepare you to conduct research for the project with Urban Institute about Credible Messenger programming. However, we want to give you the tools to conduct research and evaluation beyond this project! 

Learning Objectives

By the end of this project, you will be able to: 

1) Explain how research helps us understand issues related to the criminal legal-system 

2) Describe common research methods (i.e., quantitative and qualitative)

3) Develop a focus group script

4) Assist in creating a life event calendar survey

5) Conduct focus groups and LEC surveys with youth/young adults in your community

6) Analyze and share research findings

Getting Started

Throughout this training, you will be asked to 1) watch videos, 2) read articles, and 3) reflect on what you learned through personal reflections or discussions with other community researchers on Slack or Zoom. The training is self-paced, but we hope you will go through one module per week. Near the end of the training, we will work on more hands-on activities such as developing research instruments and collecting data. 

Getting to Know the Teams!

We have two projects funded by the National Institute of Justice to evaluate Credible Messenger programming! 

The first CM1 project is three years long and focuses on Houston, TX, Atlanta, GA and Birmingham, AL. 

The second CM2 project is five years long and focuses on Phoenix, AZ, King County, WA, Bay Area (CA), and Jackson, MS. Below we introduce the team for each project. You will be training around the same time and wanted to give the opportunity for you all to connect! 

TRAINING MODULES