1.5 Methodology
This report is a combination of both primary and secondary sources of information. The secondary sources of information include data collected for the creation of a community profile. The statistics found in that data was used to get an understanding of the demographics of the city of Cambridge and North Dumfries. The other source of secondary data was received from the municipal documents reviewed for the analysis of youth and senior policies within the community. These policies have been aggregated and can be found in figure 5.7 in section V of the appendix. The primary sources of information were the participants involved during the interview and kitchen table talk processes. All of the interviews were carried out using a questionnaire containing relevant questions required for the preparation of this report. This questionnaire can be found in figure 5.4 in section V of this report.
A list of organisations was made in order to identify key participants within the community who serve youth and seniors. This list was added to the community profile which can be found in figure 5.7 in section V of the appendix. A plan of local action that outlined a month-by-month action plan was also created to keep the project on track in terms of time.
In figure 5.2 of section V of this report, a letter regarding the project and its initiatives written by the executive director of the Social Planning Council of Cambridge and North Dumfries can be found. Of the many letters that were sent to each organisation, a few were selected to be contacted for the interview process. Most service providers were extremely co-operative and quite generously offered about one hour of their time for an interview to be conducted. E-mails regarding a synopsis of questions from the questionnaire were sent to these organisations in advance in preparation for the interview. This list of brief questions can also be found in the appendix in section V of this report in figure 5.5. A consent form was taken at each interview in order to receive permission and written authorization of the information we were about to receive and use for this report. A copy of this form can be found in figure 5.3 in section V of this report. After the interviews had been conducted, each was carefully transcribed and sent to the interviewees for feedback and confirmation of the information collected.
Another phase of the project included setting up kitchen table talks to be able to talk to the seniors and youth about issues of isolation in a direct manner. Each service provider was asked if they had any clients that could potentially be interested in attending a kitchen table talk. It was made clear that only four questions were going to be asked as part of this informal process, and that it would take less than one hour of their clients’ time. A copy of the framework that was established for the kitchen table talk process can be found in figure 5.6 of the appendix. Lastly, the interviews conducted were analysed, along with the evaluation of the kitchen table talks for the preparation of this report.