Partner: Baylor University
Baylor’s history with FASTEN
In the Fall of 2001, Dr. Diana Garland met with Julie Bundt-Sulc of The Pew Charitable Trusts in order to discuss funding for a project related to child welfare and community ministries. While current Pew initiatives did not align with the initial request, Pew was in the preliminary stages of developing an initiative known as FASTEN.
Baylor University’s School of Social Work is one of the only social work programs in the nation that seeks to integrate social work practice with matters of faith and spirituality. This specialization, along with Dr. Garland’s contributions to church social work, made Baylor University a prime candidate to conduct practical research on faith-based organizations that could be translated to practitioners.
Dr. Diana Garland, Dr. Gaynor Yancey and Dr. Rob Rogers of Baylor University’s School of Social Work prepared a proposal to The Pew Charitable Trusts, called, “The Faith Factor in Effective Models of Multi-Sector Collaboration,” in December, 2001. The proposal was accepted in January of 2002, and the funding cycle began in April of that year. The Baylor team quickly gathered an interdisciplinary team of researchers from across the country, including expertise to represent business and management perspectives, qualitative and quantitative research methodology, and familiarity with faith-based social services.
FASTEN contribution
An integral component of FASTEN is a major research effort to provide information on effective and promising practices in faith-based social service programs that address the problems of urban poverty. These problems may include unemployment and underemployment, welfare dependence, school failure and illiteracy, substance abuse, youth violence and gang involvement, family violence and neglect, and children in out-of-home foster and residential care.
The organizations targeted for study include congregations and faith-based nonprofits that represent diverse faith perspectives. The study includes stand-alone organizations, but focuses particularly on those that collaborate with private sector organizations or public agencies in funding and service provision as a means of increasing the scale and efficacy of services to the urban poor.
The research is being led by Baylor University’s School of Social Work , with partners from Baylor’s business school, the schools of social work at the University of Pittsburgh and Virginia Commonwealth University , and the Center for Religion and Civic Culture at the University of Southern California.
FASTEN Research Process
The FASTEN research team established in June 2002, developed five research questions to guide our work:
- What are promising and exemplary practices in the delivery of social services by faith-based organizations?
- What are models of collaborative multi-sector social service programs that involve faith-based organizations?
- What are the key institutional factors that are necessary to engage in such collaborative work and provide quality services?
- What are the types of services for which faith-based organizations appear to be especially well suited and those for which they may be less well suited?
- What is the role of faith in direct social service programs operated by faith-based organizations?
In pursuit of these research objectives, the team has pioneered methodology and established research protocols to guide the study, which is being conducted in two phases. Phase I has been completed; the main research portion of Phase II will begin in January 2004.
Tools for the future
Incidental resources created on behalf of this research include an ongoing annotated bibliography of over 500 topical works, research briefs and prepared case studies to be used to develop educational materials, and educational workshops and conferences designed for professionals involved with faith-based organizations and collaboratives.
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