Please submit the following  to Camille Quinn at crquinn@umich.edu

1. Cover Letter / Letter of interest
2. Resume

Job Description:

We are seeking a research assistant for mixed methods research (pilot) study with court-involved girls and their parents/caregivers. The ideal candidate will understand the research activities (e.g., recruitment, consenting/assenting/enrolling individuals in the study), data collection process, including conducting interviews, facilitating groups, transcribing, and analyzing quantitative and qualitative data with the appropriate software.

Population:

The study participants will be adolescent African American girls ages 14-18 and their self-identified parent or caregivers’ dyads (N=45). The girls will be referred by the Franklin County Juvenile Court, as well as other organizations in Central Ohio who will self-nominate their parent/caregiver who will also participate in the study. 

Current project: 

We will be recruiting, consenting/assenting, and enrolling Black/African American girls and their self-identified parent/caregiver to participate in this pilot study. Once consented (assented), we will conduct separate individual interviews that will be audio recorded with girls and their parent/caregiver about their past experiences in treatment and/or intervention programs and get their views on the proposed intervention for adaptation. Upon completion of the interviews, the research team will transcribe and analyze the interviews, and code them to develop themes and sub-themes. We will use the themes to adapt the healing and stress reduction intervention. Then we will conduct a nonrandomized test of the adapted intervention with each parent/caregiver-girl dyad for 6 sessions. After they complete the sessions, we will interview a subset of the sample (n=6) to get their feedback on being in the study. Our research team consists of both students and faculty.

To help us launch and conduct a truly participatory and action-oriented study, we are looking for a research assistant who has both academic and experience researching the experiences of Black/African American girls and women and Black communities. Given the location and population of this study, we are looking for a research assistant who can help us account for the impact of corrections and its aftermath. This research assistant would contribute a critical perspective to this study, earning authorship on the resulting manuscript(s). Other opportunities for authorship will be offered as additional manuscripts are developed, including potential first authorship if interested.

Responsibilities:

• Recruit, consent (assent), and enroll individuals to participate in the study.
• Assist with uploading the surveys and collect survey measure responses.
• Conduct individual interviews via audio recording.
• Assist with and/or transcribe the individual interviews.
• Assist with thematic analysis of 20 interview transcripts as part of a collaborative team of analysts.
• Assist principal investigators (PIs) with compilation and summarizing the findings. 
• Assist the PIs and research team with adapting the intervention using the findings/themes.
• Assist principal investigator with conducting a nonrandomized test of the 6 sessions of the adapted intervention.
• Assist PIs with final session post-intervention to get feedback about the participants’ experiences in the intervention.
• Help compile and summarize the study findings in manuscript and conference presentations.

Education: Master’s degree in the social sciences, social work, or a related field OR is a current graduate student and understanding of the lived experiences of Black or African American girls or women in the United States.

Knowledge and Experience: Coursework and experience in research methods, quantitative and/or qualitative data analysis; excellent attention to detail and organizational skills; strong critical thinking and writing skills. Proficiency in Microsoft Office and quantitative analysis software (e.g., SPSS, stata), qualitative analysis software (e.g., Dedoose, NVivo, Atlas.Ti). 

Current graduate students preferred; some familiarity with law enforcement/corrections, court-involved girls and/or the youth court system, trauma, and mixed methods research, and the lived experience as a Black or African American girl or woman in the United States.