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NNIP PARTNER SPOTLIGHT
Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development Institutional Setting The Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development (CUPCD) is based in a university context as part of the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University. The Mandel School strongly emphasizes direct work with local city-wide and community institutions to address the opportunities and problems of poor neighborhoods. The CUPCD mission is "to create, communicate, and apply knowledge of value to a broad range of audiences and constituents concerned with the ultimate goal of reducing urban poverty and its consequences. . . . The Center serves as a pathway between the university, and the community, linking social science to social change."
CUPCD was founded in 1988 with grants from the Cleveland and Rockefeller Foundations (it was one of the latter's Community Planning and Action Projects). Its funders have broadened more recently to include other foundations and agencies, some of whom purchase research products and data services on a contract basis.
The Center's mission statement notes several features: "The special focus of all studies undertaken by the Center's multidisciplinary team is the neighborhood-the fundamental interface between the large-scale social forces that create poverty and the individuals and families who are poor. Center researchers have mounted many collaborative projects incorporating approaches from other disciplines and professions. . . . To ensure that its research has immediate relevance for its constituents, the Center undertakes projects only with community involvement."
Cleveland Area Network for Data Organizing (CAN DO) CUPCD Director Claudia Coulton began assembling neighborhood-level data soon after the Center was founded. In 1990, the Center issued a full report on trends in Cleveland's neighborhoods over the preceding two decades-a report used as the primary basis for the formation of the Cleveland Poverty Commission. As this and other reports were more widely disseminated, the Center began to receive more requests for data assistance. In response to this demand, the staff developed the CAN DO system.
In its current form, CAN DO contains neighborhood-level information from the 1990 census and from a variety of administrative data files (information, for the most part, for every year since 1980). Administrative data series go back to 1979 and are now updated annually. System data are made available through a user-friendly, menu-driven, online database network. The data can be accessed via the Internet through the Center's website at http://povertycenter.cwru.edu. Community groups can thus access and use the database directly. Center staff provide training and technical assistance to help them use it effectively in planning and program development.
PARTNER BIOGRAPHIES: Claudia J. Coulton, Ph.D., Professor of Social Welfare and Co-Director of the Center for Urban Poverty and Social Change, Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Case Western Reserve University. Dr. Coulton, was appointed the Director of the Center for Urban Poverty and Social Change in 1988.
Dr. Coulton has worked with her colleagues to develop an extensive database on urban poverty conditions and has published many analyses of poverty and its impact on poor people and neighborhoods. She has also published numerous articles and reports and presented papers on poverty, social welfare and urban issues throughout the United States. During her career, Coulton has been either the project director or the principal investigator of many significant research projects. While working as Poverty Center Co-Director, Coulton is also Co-Investigator of a program of study on the Impact of Poor Neighborhood Conditions on Children and Families; Director of the Comprehensive Early Childhood Initiative Evaluation; and she is directing ongoing research on the impact of welfare reform on urban neighborhoods. She serves as an advisor to several national foundations and groups. Coulton received her B.A. degree (cum laude) from Ohio Wesleyan University, her M.S.W. from Ohio State University, and her Ph.D. in Social Welfare from CWRU. She is a member of many professional organizations and has served on the boards of numerous committees and publications. Coulton was the recipient of the 1993 National Association of Social Worker's Presidential Award for Excellence in Social Work Research, and in 1989, she received the John Diekhoff Award for Distinguished Graduate Teaching at CWRU. In 1994, she was inducted into the Ohio Women's Hall of Fame. |