Profile and Research Proposal

This is a social planning essay for a social welfare unit of study.
Aims: This assessment has two aims and relates chiefly to content that has been discussed in the Study Guide.
First, this assessment aims to give you some experience in accessing
‘secondary’ demographic data and then using these data to describe features of a population within your community.
Secondly, this assessment aims to encourage you to think through a
range of aspects that are associated with the question of how you could and/or would (hypothetically) go about undertaking some social planning research.

Topic: Assume that you are currently employed by a Local Council and have been asked to assist with some social planning for your geographical community (defined as your local
government area, or LGA).
Your tasks are as follows:
• Select one population group in your community (such as: children; young people; women;
older people; Indigenous people; men; or people with a disability) and provide a brief
profile of that population while using ‘secondary’ data.
• Prepare a proposal detailing how you could go about assessing the needs of your chosen
population group. You may like to select an issue relevant for your chosen population upon
which to focus your hypothetical needs assessment. For example, women’s need for health
services; young people’s need for a youth centre; the need for a men’s shed; or for a
supported playgroup for children; and so on.

In your proposal, please include the following:
a. What ‘primary’ data would you generate and why?
b. Provide a draft of the data collection instrument(s) you would use. The data collection
instrument(s) must relate to your response to (a) and could include a short questionnaire, an
interview schedule or focus group questions. Please attach your example data collection
instrument(s) as an appendix to your report.
c. How would you encourage participation in your research; who would be involved; and how
would/could they be involved?
d. What politics are likely to be involved when undertaking your research?
e. What strategies could you have in place to encourage implementation of your findings?
Important note: Please do not generate any ‘primary’ data for this assessment item, as you
must first have permission from the University’s Ethics Committee in order to do so. The idea
of this assessment is for you to demonstrate that you can access and use some ‘secondary’ data
and that you can think through a range of aspects that are associated with questions of how
you could and/or would (hypothetically) go about generating some ‘primary’ data relevant for
social planning.