What was the issue?
Children’s Scholarship Fund Philadelphia (CSFP) is a privately-funded program whose mission is to provide children from under-resourced Philadelphia families with financial access to quality, safe, K-8th grade, tuition-based schools. CSFP’s recently introduced Parent Ambassador (PA) program is expanding and they were looking to gain a better understanding of how to effectively serve the needs of families in the school communities they currently serve and will be serving in the coming years.
What was achieved?
The focus groups provided valuable insights that will help ensure the PA program is aligned with the needs of the school communities. The information helped CSFP plan for the upcoming expansion of the PA program in multiple ways, including at the most basic level, knowing the best way to communicate updates and information to its scholarship parents, and developing materials about how to evaluate quality pre-k options for distribution to low-income parents and the public. A couple of highlights from the research:
– Respondents had little familiarity with the PA Program, but CSFP parents who will have a PA in their child’s school starting this month were excited about it. They thought that it would be good to have someone to talk to, and they expected to learn about scholarship opportunities.
– The most important factors when choosing an early childcare program were: safety, highly rated or accredited, educational/academic program/school-based pre-k, class size, and affordability.
How ?
On CSFP’s behalf, Rich and his team donated their time to conduct two focus groups for CSFP–the first group consisted of CSFP parents of children attending a school that has had a PA for at least one year. The second group consisted of CSFP parents who have children attending a school that doesn’t currently have a PA but will in the upcoming school year. Rich moderated the groups and he and his team evaluated the feedback and provide a summary report back to CSFP.
Who did the work?
Rich Thau, Engagious
Member of National Association
USA – Insights Association
Twitter reference account/hashtag
@Engagious
Nominated by
Brian Izenson
Date
01/24/2020
