The “By Mothers” initiative, under the guidance of the People’s Research Council, seeks to address deep-seeded issues faced by Black mothers in Forsyth County, especially within the healthcare system. Drawing from the real experiences of Black mothers, the project seeks to shed light on the challenges these mothers encounter in interacting with a racially-biased medical system. The project empowers Black mothers not only as participants but as key researchers. This involves training them to conduct surveys and qualitative analysis to ensure the research is grounded in community perspectives. The main goal is to use the collected data to work with medical institutional partners, such as Atrium Wake Health and Novant Health, and drive lifesaving interventions. Funded by the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust for an initial pilot year and further supported for three years, significant milestones include deriving recommendations from birthing individuals, developing a supportive app for mothers post-delivery, and creating the Forsyth Doula Network. Every step is about channeling real voices to drive tangible, impactful changes.

Formerly known as ‘Survey Panel’

The project goal is to engage people from the community, through the PRC, to advise and lead on the development of ethical data collection guidelines to prevent harmful data collection practices and to align future data collection efforts with community benefit. Data collection is the process of gathering information, directly from people, to answer a question or solve a problem. This can be done through methods like surveys, interviews, observations, or recording what happens in a certain situation. The collected data is then used to understand patterns, make decisions, or develop new ideas.

When we are talking about data collected directly from human subjects, it is important to understand the history and context of community-focused data collection (sometimes called surveys) in Winston-Salem and Forsyth County. Any group can come into our community and collect data from people as long as they have the resources to pay for it.

• Often this can be harmful to community and can look like:
  people from outside of a community or neighborhood showing up and asking questions,
• A lack of cultural awareness or competency,
• A lack of the community’s knowledge or consent,
• extracting information without providing appropriate compensation or return of benefit,
• a lack of clarity in who is gathering data and why,
• Failure to report the information gathered back to the research participants.
• Using collected data in a way that goes against a community’s interests (i.e. development and gentrification efforts)
• Reporting on the data gathered in a way that presents a one-sided or skewed perception of the surveyed population, which can create space for the pathologization of peoples.

These examples are not exhaustive but they generally illustrate the harms, past and present, done through data collection activities and the inequitable and unethical situations that arise.

 In this particular study, Universal Pre-K services were examined, how those services are currently rendered, and what parents actually need from the institutions that provide Pre-K services.  The need for Universal Pre-K Services has been expressed by many parents, guardians, and caregivers of young children. We know based on previous research that Universal Pre-K has strong support among all voters in our country, and that the services benefit both parents and children in numerous ways. This led to the foundational research questions: Why are there so many Forsyth County children not enrolled in Pre-K? What changes would make an impact?”

The focus of Forsyth Family Power’s research was discovering the specific needs of Black and Brown parents in our community around a pre-k system that works for everyone. We also wanted to shed light on the perspectives of Black and Brown parents around accessibility to the current Pre-K services offered in Forsyth County. Our questions were created and driven by Black parents based on our own personal experiences around accessing the Pre-K system in its current form. Our research was intended to shed light on the unique perspectives that Black and Brown parents experience which is often left out of research. By highlighting the needs of Black and Brown parents, we are able to add their perspective on building learning environments for children of all races, cultures, and economic backgrounds. After collecting and analyzing the data collected through this research,  a list of recommendations were developed reflecting the quality standards that Black and Brown parents would like to see implemented.

The “By Mothers” initiative, under the guidance of the People’s Research Council, seeks to address deep-seeded issues faced by Black mothers in Forsyth County, especially within the healthcare system. Drawing from the real experiences of Black mothers, the project seeks to shed light on the challenges these mothers encounter in interacting with a racially-biased medical system. The project empowers Black mothers not only as participants but as key researchers. This involves training them to conduct surveys and qualitative analysis to ensure the research is grounded in community perspectives. The main goal is to use the collected data to work with medical institutional partners, such as Atrium Wake Health and Novant Health, and drive lifesaving interventions. Funded by the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust for an initial pilot year and further supported for three years, significant milestones include deriving recommendations from birthing individuals, developing a supportive app for mothers post-delivery, and creating the Forsyth Doula Network. Every step is about channeling real voices to drive tangible, impactful changes.

A survey is a tool that asks people questions to gather information. Surveys can help communities understand what people think, feel, and experience. By using surveys, communities can identify missing data, learn about people’s needs, and make informed decisions to improve people’s material conditions. While surveys are a valuable tool to gather information, there is a feeling that people in some areas of our community have been surveyed so frequently they report feeling surveilled. Additionally, community surveys can do harm when they use extractive practices, fail to return value or benefit to the community, and engage in ways that are not respectful, accessible, or culturally competent. It can be unclear who conducts surveys and for what purpose and the data can be used in ways that may not align with the community’s interests.

The aim of the Survey Panel is to create a tool to ethically and equitably bridge needed community information gaps. Setting up the Survey Panel requires recruiting a diverse, random sample of volunteers from across the county. These people would opt in to take in occasional surveys, with the option to opt out at any time. They would receive compensation for their involvement. Once the Survey Panel is set up, surveys can be administered to gather local data on an as-needed basis — this project is essentially building the mechanism to carry out surveys in a more efficient and equitable way.

A key value proposition for the Survey Panel is that, by establishing ethical and equitable guidelines into it’s governance, standards for ethics and equity in community surveying will be established. To accomplish this, people from the community must advise and guide decision making in its design and implementation. The intention is to make the Survey Panel community-driven and directed and position it as part of the PRC infrastructure to ensure community oversight and adherence to ethical standards, and that surveys benefit the community in a material way.

Funders for this project include the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust, The Winston-Salem Foundation, and the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation.

 In this particular study, Universal Pre-K services were examined, how those services are currently rendered, and what parents actually need from the institutions that provide Pre-K services.  The need for Universal Pre-K Services has been expressed by many parents, guardians, and caregivers of young children. We know based on previous research that Universal Pre-K has strong support among all voters in our country, and that the services benefit both parents and children in numerous ways. This led to the foundational research questions: Why are there so many Forsyth County children not enrolled in Pre-K? What changes would make an impact?”

The focus of Forsyth Family Power’s research was discovering the specific needs of Black and Brown parents in our community around a pre-k system that works for everyone. We also wanted to shed light on the perspectives of Black and Brown parents around accessibility to the current Pre-K services offered in Forsyth County. Our questions were created and driven by Black parents based on our own personal experiences around accessing the Pre-K system in its current form. Our research was intended to shed light on the unique perspectives that Black and Brown parents experience which is often left out of research. By highlighting the needs of Black and Brown parents, we are able to add their perspective on building learning environments for children of all races, cultures, and economic backgrounds. After collecting and analyzing the data collected through this research,  a list of recommendations were developed reflecting the quality standards that Black and Brown parents would like to see implemented.