Grant Proposal: Hampton Respite Relief
The grant is a respite care of military families having children with special needs. This care seeks to allow for the funder to care for such children with things such as shopping, movies, counseling services, group therapy, classes or just a mental break considering that their parents are away for military missions. The military families are supposedly living in uncomfortable conditions unlike other families whose breadwinners do other civil services. Hence, those families having children with special needs need to have attention to help them overcome feeling neglected. The issue that this part seek to address is providing the needs statement and the objectives of the grant. This portion will address who the families are that qualify to participate, the necessary resources for this program and how the families benefit rom this program.
Part 1: Needs Statement, Goals and Objectives
Needs Statement
Hampton Respite Relief is intended to reestablish comfort to military families having children with special needs. Those families need to live comfortably like other families without having a feeling of stigmatization. Turchi and Mann (2012) argues that military families feel isolated since their main source of income comes from undertaking military missions and their supporters are mostly out for various missions. Hence, there is a need to help the families restore their joy by providing support to the children with special needs to make them feel like others.
According to Choppala-Nestor and Riley (2013) raising children with special needs is one test of happiness in a marriage. Military families have strong foundation where they can work, but the members who are depended on are always away from their children. Children with special needs need to have indoor and outdoor fun like others. However, since the members serve at military missions, most of those children are isolated and they feel neglected by the parents and the society. Also, Choppala-Nestor and Riley clarifies that children with special needs need to have services such as education and healthcare. When a military child has special needs, then the advocacy should grow to include learning the legal provisions and finding extra resources to represent that child to special program.
Family members have said a substantial child care provider is a concern of every military member even while undertaking the mission (Parent, 1). On the other hand, those members will uncomfortably undertake the operations rendering the missions in jeopardy. According to Eddy (2013), how military service members are treated determines the success of the mission which include security matters. Hence, lack of care providers for their children with special needs compromises their effort to comfortably undertake the mission. Also, the military service members feel neglected by the state if no one is concerned with taking care of their families. Hence, they jeopardize their service provision leading other challenges in the entire state such as insecurities.
Hollar (2012) proves that military families with children who have special needs face a lot of challenges. Also, military families face more challenges than other families having children with the same special needs. For instance, such families feel isolated since due to their distance from the extended families and other close people who could possibly help them. Secondly, those families feel it is difficult to navigate complex system of care and services considering the complexity in the military. Thirdly, the military members have to start from scratch to find service providers when they are relocated and have to piece together the plan of care upon reaching new locations.
Also, unlike the civilians in the state, the military members have to take much time learning that the availability of care services can vary form one installation to another (Parent 1). According to Eddy (2013), the military service members need to adjust to deployment since they are not practically able to help the families in day to day activities. Hence, their children with special needs do not have an opportunity to have fun and other services such as shopping, movies, counseling services, and group therapy.
The challenges noted are expected to be solved by the Exceptional Family Member Program (EFMP) which is designed to assist the children with special needs in military families. This funder will be expected to collect the data and take appropriate actions to assist those families. Also, this project is helpful in meeting the needs that are currently missing through providing the methodology of identifying those families and how the data will be analyzed to contain all details of the needs of those children. The two funder I will seek for this program are Brand USA and Respite Care Association of Wisconsin (RCAW). These two funders provide full support towards the respite.
Goals
Objective 1 – 50 families will be served by the program and each will receive 10 hours a month of respite care for 36 months.
Evaluation Criteria 1 –Each family will take a survey to determine how beneficial the program has been for them.
Objective 2 – Provide support to spouses of deployed service members while the active duty service member is away on active duty.
Objective 3 – To improve the quality of life of family member with children with special needs.
Evaluation Criteria 2 – Parents will complete a monthly log of the services that
wereprovided during the month.
Objective 4 – To ensure that every need of the caregiving spouse is meet while the
service member is away.
Evaluation Criteria 1 – Parent will complete a monthly log of all classes
therapies or activities in which they participated during the month.
Part 1
There has been much concern about how military families with special needs children live and whether they have the necessary resources. Various bodies have proposed to investigate the matter of several of these families having children with special needs. Such children deserve to live comfortably like other children especially considering that their breadwinners are serving the country in military missions. This application seeks to provide the procedure of helping such families including providing them with non-basic items and services including child care, shopping, counseling services, group therapy, classes or just a mental break.
Part 2: Methodology and Evaluation Plan
This report seeks to evaluate the procedure that can be used to provide a grant to military families having children with special needs. Some parts that will be explored include the methodology, research design, human subjects, the credibility of the study, assumptions and limitations, and evaluation plan.
Methodology
Program Description
The program is intended to reestablish independence to military families having children with special needs. Those families need to live comfortably like other families without having a feeling of stigmatization. Many of the military families feel isolated since their main source of income comes from undertaking military missions and their supporters are mostly away for various missions. Hence, there is a need to help the families restore their joy by providing support to the children with special needs to make them feel comfortable. Some services that can be provided to them include counseling services, group therapy, classes or just a mental break.
Research Design
This research design will be quantitative research since there is a need to quantify different supportive aspects such as the number of military families having children with special needs and the exact number of children per family. The survey quantitative design is the most appropriate considering that the researcher will have to collect data based on direct visit to those families or using the military records in every given region to ascertain the number of families and children. Oakshott (2016) states that survey means is a statistical method involving the study of sampling of individual units from a population using means such as questionnaire. Hence, this technique is suitable for collecting the family information that needs support.
Human Subjects
The participant population will consist of adults between the age of 20 and 50 years. One key requirement is the knowledge of the community that they will be surveying. Secondly, there is a need of basic knowledge of special needs since the families may need some guidance pertaining the issue. Also, an additional requirement will be that those who have the same families having children with special needs will have an added advantage in joining the team.
Study Validity and Reliability
The validity of the sources is examined using various means. For example, the articles which are peer reviewed are considered valid since they have been evaluated by the scholars in the same field. Hence, any source in the field of special needs or military that has goon through scholarly review is regarded as valid and can be used in this study. Secondly, recent sources which with around nine years after publications are regarded as valid since their content is up to date as opposed to those that have completed many years with old information.
On the other hand, reliability of a given source is defined as its ability to be present when needed for either reference or when there is a clarification to make from it. According to Guest, Namey and Mitchell (2012), the sources’ reliability does not imply validity since non-scholarly source can as well be available ones that serves quantitative research. Hence, the sources that will be used in this study need to be credible and reliable.
Assumptions and Limitations
An assumption refers to an unexamined credence which researchers use while conducting a given study. Researches cannot be efficiently undertaken without making the assumptions but, those assumptions does not need to affect the conclusion significantly (Guest, Namey, & Mitchell, 2012). Some assumptions that this study will make include length of time that will be taken to conduct survey and the services that participants will be accorded during the activity. For instance, it could be difficult to quantify the exact time required to conduct a survey considering other factors such as the availability of members expected to contribute to the survey, but an approximation need to be provided.
Limitations are anything that limits the research for the program. There can be limitations for the length of time, the place, getting participants to return or remain in the study. The time required to acquire full information about the families and the type of special needs may be longer than the designated time. Also, the sources of research are assumed to be credible regardless of the author’s opinions despite using the scholarly sources.
Timeline (sample below)
| Activity | Time Frame |
| Instrument/Survey Development | Weeks, months, others |
| Pilot Testing | 5 weeks |
| Subject Recruitment | 1 month |
| Application of therapy or service | 1 month |
| Other possible services | 6 weeks |
| parental education | 7 weeks |
| Counselling | 1 week |
| Data Entry and Cleaning | 5 weeks |
| Data Analysis | 1 week |
| Report Generation | 1 week |
Analysis
The analysis of data will be done in phases. Firstly, all data from given regions will be compiled as a preparation for analysis. Secondly, data will be analyzed based on those regions before combining the results at a more hierarchical level. For instance, the results from every state can be compiled and analyzed and later combine them for final outcome.
Non-personnel Resources
Some non-personnel resources required for this study include rooms, computers, files, chairs, and foodstuff. The rooms will be rented in every location near the place where data will be collected. Files and other writing materials will be used by the participants to enter details of the families that will survey before recording them in computer. Every non-personnel response will be gathered for by the organizations that will fund the study.
Personnel resources
Some people who will work for the program include the following:
· The surveyors– these people will collect data from the military families that submit them to the analysts.
· The analysts: these people will analyze data upon receiving and they are distributed into different levels.
· The counselors– this group comprise of people who will accompany the surveyors and recommend to the analysts the appropriate actions to be taken.
Management Plan
I am the principle investigator in this project and my main role is to recommend the steps that needs to be taken while undertaking the activity (Perrewé, 2011). Also, I will be responsible for the actions that the three therapists; family, cognitive-behavioral and emotion-focused will be doing to ensure that the process is successful. For instance, I will confirm that those therapists will provide services that are appropriate to both children with special needs and their guardians. Furthermore, the two human service professionals focusing on substance abuse and addiction treatment will be responsible for focusing and providing treatment and prevention and I will be overseeing the process.
Also, I will manage different players during the survey and ensure that they will be undertaking their work as expected. The project director will plan all the procedure that will be used in the study and ensure that it is followed to the end (Perrewé, 2011). The assistant therapists will provide support to the main therapists or represent them in case of absence. Also, I will oversee the work done by the clinicians perform their duty upon recommendation. Their role will be treating the children upon any need as recommended by the analysts before providing other special services to those children. Other parties that I will be in charge of their services include volunteers or interns and the statistician.
Evaluation Plan
Description of Specific Criteria
The participants must undergo some criteria to ensure that this process is successful. For instance, there is a need to ensure that every surveyor has a background information about the region they will be surveying while the analysts must have basic knowledge of special needs. Also, the counselor must be able to respond to the family’s queries pertaining the special issues that are studied.
Explanation of Data That Will be collected
The survey quantitative design is the most appropriate considering that the researcher will have to collect data based on direct visit to those families or using the military records in every given region to ascertain the number of families and children. Oakshott (2016) states that survey means is a statistical method involving the study of sampling of individual units from a population using means such as questionnaire. Hence, this technique is suitable for collecting the family information that needs support.
The children’s past and present mental, psychological and emotional health will be collected to assess how well the family, emotion-focused and cognitive-behavioral therapy works to increase their well-being (Oakshott, 2016). There may also be information needed at pre and post the program. Information can come from several sources such as therapists, quantitative data on how many participate, academics, test scores, qualitative data on how participants feel or how therapists rate progress.
Explanation of the Data Collection Plans
To collect the above data, the children will go through mental, psychological and emotional testing at the beginning of the project, while academics will be collected from the children’s schools and discussions will take place with teacher (Mertens & McLaughlin, 2004). There are some steps that will be used to collect data in those families.
Firstly, after identifying that the issue to be studies pertains the children with special needs from military families, then internal assessment is done to understand what is happening in and out of the organization undertaking research. Secondly, the organization will select the specific issues in every family and set an objective to achieve after a given time. This action will ensure that appropriate data will be collected once data is collected (Mertens and McLaughlin, 2004). Planning an approach and methods that will be used to collect data is the third step that will involve making decisions about specific families that will be surveyed and the data collection methods.
Collection of data involves consulting the key stakeholders both in the military sector and the organization before establishing a steering committee who will undertake various roles. The people who will collect data include are representatives and teachers (Mertens and McLaughlin, 2004). For instance, the targeted children are expected to go through mental, psychological and emotional testing as the data collection commence. The children identified to be having special needs are then recorded in files and all the family information noted as well. The process will be repeated in all the schools in the region before being compiled for analysis and conclusion.
Evaluation of Instruments
Interviews and surveys were chosen as the evaluation instruments as we are going to be implementing this program throughout a long period of time, 36-month and we expected many participants for credibility of data. The survey method will involve using schools and direct visit to military families to ascertain the children with special needs. Hence, mental, psychological and emotional testing will be conducted before seeking the guardians’ advice on the same. Hence, a simple questionnaire with some questions shall be included. Simple and open-ended questions will be used for efficiency and more accuracy. For instance, ‘Has this child been behaving normally without signs of stress?’
Periodic Reports
Some periodic reports that we will gain in addition to the larger evaluations we are focusing on include the periodic reports on program and structure and the effectiveness of the personnel. These reports will guide the leading teams to recommend the appropriate changes that may need to be taken to arrive at a successful completion.
Conclusion
This report examined the methodology and the evaluation plan for grant application for military families having children with special needs. The quantitative research is recommended since there is a need to quantify different supportive aspects such as the number of military families having children with special needs and the exact number of children per family. Also, various personnel and non-personnel resources have been evaluated and the result shows that there is enough of them to run the project successfully. Also, the criteria that the participants are expected to follow are evaluated before evaluating the data collection instruments.
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