Boosting youth and parent voice through community engagement
Objective: Waltham Partnership for Youth, a non-profit organization in the city of Waltham, MA, heard frequent comments that transportation needs of youth and families in the city are under addressed. It commissioned a city-wide study on transportation equity centered on youth to:
Engage community members to identify gaps in current infrastructure
Examine existing policy and practice in Waltham around transportation
Propose possible solutions.
Approach: MXM Research Group worked with Waltham Partnership for Youth to assemble an advisory committee comprised of state and city officials, local agencies, service providers, youth, and parents to 1) Advise on planning and outreach strategies and 2) Engage key constituents throughout the process. The study's website - Waltham Rides Together - served as a dynamic hub for recruiting study participants and volunteers and sharing updates with the community.
Waltham is linguistically and economically diverse, and home to many recent and long-term immigrants. To ensure our community engagement efforts would reach parents from across cultural and economic groups, we mobilized service providers, parents, and youth volunteers to gather data through a community survey in English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole. After exploring preliminary findings, we deployed a multi-week SMS-based dialogue campaign with youth using GroundSource to validate our findings and add texture to our understanding of their transportation challenges.
Result: Our targeted outreach efforts yielded high levels of participation from both young people and racial/ethnic groups that are traditionally underrepresented in community surveys. We identified three priority areas for change and worked with key stakeholders to develop targeted recommendations to city government, school administrators, and community partners. Waltham Partnership for Youth is building off the study’s community engagement efforts to explore and build support for possible solutions.
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Project website: Waltham Rides Together
GroundSource texting platform for audience engagement
