Research that Benefits Children and Families—Uplifting Stories

Option 1: As I sat back with my family thinking about the positive effects research has on families, I could only think of one icon that changed the lives of thousands. Erin Brokovitch brings back memories of Julia Roberts and the movie she played in called, “Erin Brokovitch” Erin Brokovitch is an inspiration to many for her efforts of curing a small town from pollution form their own Electric and Water Company. Erin, a single mother, obtained a job at local law firm in Cali when she stumbled across some files that gained her attention. Through Erin’s research, she found that Pacific Gas & Electric was poisoning the residents of Hinkley for 30 years by leaking Chromium 6 into the ground water. (http://www.brockovich.com/mystory.html). Her efforts resulted in her performing massive research of medical files for the town, and setting up anti-pollution lawsuits. It is efforts such as Erin Brokovitch’s that helped over 600 Hinkley residents to receive settlements and the company Pacific Gas & Electric to pay out over 333 million. The reason I share this information is because one single-woman stumbled across medical files and took it various efforts to research about the town of Hinkley, and help the residents from a poisonous substance that infected the pipeline which housed their drinking water. References Official website of Erin Brokovitch. (2010). Retrieved from (http://www.brokovich.com/mystory.html). Wikipedia.org. (Nov 7, 2012). Erin Brokovitch. Retrieved from. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erin_Brockovich).

My Personal Research Journey

My chosen topic of discussion for this course is the issue of Poverty. My main focus is how we as professionals can create and implement programs to help those children in poverty stricken neighborhoods. My subtopic of choice is how we can create programs within the poverty stricken neighborhoods for parents and children to come and receive advice, pamphlets or reading materials, meals, medicine, and immunizations to assist them in raising healthy children. I feel that just offering pamphlets to parents with information about nutrition, can help them learn about what good eating has to offer. Also, by including a shelter, or dwelling within poverty stricken neighborhoods, we can offer services besides pamphlets; we can offer medical advice, nutritious meals, after-school care, and job searching tips to help parents get out of poverty. My experience with this topic has been very rewarding in the new insights that I have gained about research and the topic being one which needs attention. I think by learning what it takes to become an effective researcher, I can come up with plenty of useful measures that cities and communities can adopt, low-cost to help Americas families. With, that we can go even further to help children and families globally. By asking each of my colleagues to offer any useful advice or resources to direct in the right path towards helping those families in need can be of great value towards my research. I know that two valuable resources that deal with global efforts to end world poverty include the Global Children’s Fund and UNICEF. One can find a tremendous amount of articles, measures, and expert advice in how to help those families in need. Resources Global Children’s Fund. (www.globalfundforchildren.org). UNICEF. (www.unicef.org).

EDUC 6163-6_Building Research Competencies

This is the fifth class towards my Masters Degree and I am excited to learn how to be an effective and professional researcher. I look forward to working with all of you to discover more effective methods of researching and to make new friends as well. I wish all of you success in your endeavors.