LSU Post-Katrina Survey: Information for Leaders Background and Resources - To Help You Conduct the Survey And Get Results You can Use   We can offer your church, neighborhood association, social service organization, or membership organization a survey of your members or clients – what their needs are (including emotional and spritual) and what you as leaders can do to help them. We do the survey in cooperation with leadership, and give you the results. The survey is conducted by the LSU Survey Lab, and we follow the strictest measures of privacy and confidentiality.  We began the survey with the Jewish Federations of New Orleans and Baton Rouge. Since then, we are also doing the survey for the Catholic Archdiocese of New Orleans, the Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, and Southern Baptists of the Greater New Orleans region, as well as a number of individual churches in other denominations. We are also doing it with the Vietnamese community, with Chalmette, with a dozen or more neighborhood associations, with Xavier University, with a couple city council members in New Orleans, with WWOZ, Preservation Hall, and the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation (of displaced musicians & social aid & pleasure clubs), and with a number of social service providers in New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and other locations (of their clients, who may be evacuees). There is no cost and little effort involved for leaders. You simply distribute and collect the questionnaires - or give your members an internet address where they can fill out the survey. We’ll compile the results and give you a report. More information about the survey - What you can learn, here. A project description. The Survey Questionnaire - On Paper, here. You can print this out and duplicate as many copies as you need to distribute to your membership. Note: This version is for Greater New Orleans. We have versions available for other Parishes, and we can customize the questionnaire for your congregation or community. Please contact us before distributing, and we will help you get the best version for your needs. On the Internet, here. Your members can go here to take the survey on the internet. [They can choose versions for several Parishes.] Resources to Help you Distribute the Survey Announcements of the survey for Churches or Neighborhood Associations that can be used in bulletins, newsletters, handouts, emails, websites, etc. A Question and Answer Sheet for Respondents (FAQs) to be provided to survey respondents, here. Preliminary Results, here. Caution: Very preliminary findings from small, not-yet representative Sample. Final results may vary from those presented here. Data as of October 24, 2006. Preliminary findings not for publication. Simple & Easy Methods for Distributing the Survey General methods and extra ideas for distributing the Survey, here Distributing the Survey at a Church Put a notice in your church bulletin, website & email lists. Here is a notice you can use. Announce from the pulpit that you will be distributing paper copies of the survey. Distribute the copies of the printed survey after services and ask congregants to bring back the completed surveys the next time they come to church. Tell congregants that every person in the household age 18 & older should fill it out, not just 1 per household. Give them enough copies for each person to do one separately. We will pick up the the completed surveys from you. In the meantime, congregants reach out to family and friends who have not returned, and ask them to take the survey online. Distributing the Survey from a Social Service Organization Have case managers or counselors distribute paper copies of the survey to clients. Tell clients that every person in the household age 18 & older should fill it out, not just 1 per household. Give them enough copies for each person to do one separately. Tell clients that you’ll pick them up - or they can return them directly to you - and ask case managers to pick up the surveys on their next visit (or have the clients return them to you). We will come and pick up the completed surveys from you. In the meantime, clients reach out to family and friends who have not returned, and ask them to take the survey online. Distributing the Survey by a Neighborhood Association Put a notice in your Neighborhood Association newsletter, website & email lists. Here is a notice you can use. Distribute the copies of the printed survey at neighborhood meetings and ask neighbors to bring the completed surveys to a convenient local collection point. Or - Have block captains or volunteers distribute the surveys to neighbors and pick up completed surveys from them. Tell neighbors that every person in the household age 18 & older should fill it out, not just 1 per household. Give them enough copies for each person to do one separately We will come and pick up the completed surveys from you. In the meantime, neighbors reach out to family and friends who have not returned, and ask them to take the survey online.   Technical background for social scientists about how we will analyze the results. Causal Diagram - Preliminary results support this model. Operationalization of variables - Preliminary dimensional analysis supports construction of these scales. For more information, contact Prof. Frederick Weil Department of Sociology, LSU, fweil@lsu.edu   *Some files require the Adobe Acrobat Reader to view. Most people already have this on their computer. If you need it, it is available free here.