Opening Doors in Communities Posted on February 28, 2006 Velma McBride Murry (bio) suggests establishing partnerships with community gatekeepers before recruiting.

A key place to start for our communities is a school principal. They know who the movers are because oft time they're confronted by these movers and shakers when they want to see things changed in the school setting.

The other key avenue is the Board of Education in these school settings, and more importantly, the ministers of the churches in these communities. Our staff will usually go into the community, spend several days visiting these entities. They will, similar names will come up in these various entities. Then one of them will welcome the opportunity to call a meeting where they will identify individuals in the community that the families tend to have a lot of trust in, who would be considered the overseers of the community or the gatekeepers of the community.

What we will do is meet with them, talk with them about what it is that we want to do, and actually hold meetings with families with these community leaders to give them a sense of what our research model looks like, what some of the questions are that we're going to ask, which brings in the whole notion of cultural sensitivity. They will then give us a sense of whether or not what we're planning to do meshes with what it is that they want to see happen in their community in terms of outcomes as well as areas of focus.

Once these individuals really come on board, and they really do want the program in their community, then they begin to be our spokespersons, if you will, in the community that say, "This is a project that's being conducted by the Center for Family Research at the University of Georgia." They may talk about this project in church, when they're in PTA meetings, if they see people in the grocery store, and that is a sanctioning piece of it. They say it's okay. These people are not coming to our community to harm us. They're not coming to our community to continue to paint negative images of individuals who live in these communities.

When that happens, then the doors are really opened for us in a very welcoming way for us to begin to launch our research projects in these communities. So you can see it takes a lot of work which oft time isn't necessarily clear when you're first starting a research agenda.

It's not a very easy process to get established, but once it's established - and you continue to maintain the sense of trust that these community leaders or the community liaisons said that you would have if you came into this community - if you maintain that level of trust, then the families will be there with you for as long as the project is. And that's why our retention rate is so high. There's a level of respect that they have for us because we give that to them.

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