Project Goals 

The Neighborhood Communications project is run by Trinity College’s Action Lab with the city of Hartford’s office of community engagement, to improve information services within the city of Hartford. The office of community engagement “is to act as the liaison between City residents and City departments and to provide easy, fast and convenient access to City information and services to our residents.” The end goal of the Neighborhood Communications project is to find the preferred and most effective method of communication of Hartford residents from the city of Hartford.

Members

Our Action Lab group originally had four members, three from Trinity college and one from Capital Community College. Our Neighborhood Communication group worked together to draft our in-person interview questions and survey questions. Our team’s community partner is Janice Castle  from the city of Hartford’s office of community engagement. The neighborhood communications project Faculty fellow, Professor Aponte-Aviles, from Trinity College has given our group feedback during the entire semester. One of the group members, Autumn Thom, a Capital Community College student, left our group before we started to conduct research. All of the spring Action Lab teams were not able to meet regularly due to the COVID-19 outbreak in Connecticut.  Our team completed our qualitative research through In-person interviews and surveys before we transitioned to online meetings. Our project team will give our recommendations based on our findings to Janice Castle through Zoom. 

Lill Foote,  a junior at Trinity College from Duxbury, MA majoring in Biology. To me, the neighborhood communication project has been a very hands on  research experience that has worked to better the city of Hartford. I hope the takeaway from this project is that residents feel more involved and more connected to their city.

Victoria Asfalg, a freshman at Trinity College from Rocky Hill, CT is hoping to major in Economics.  Having attended a Hartford Public School for grades 6 through 12, Victoria is passionate about Trinity’s engagement with the Hartford community.  She was excited to join the Neighborhood Communications team in order to promote Hartford residents’ agency in communicating with the City of Hartford.

Sulemaan Khalid, a freshman at Trinity College from Farmington, CT is majoring in Urban Studies. The Neighborhood Communication project is his first time conducting research with Trinity College and also at all. Sulemaan is looking forward to helping Hartford’s local government to spread information to a broader portion of the local population. 

Autom Thom, a freshman at Capitol Community College was a member of the Neighborhood Communications team at the beginning of the semester.  Her work towards the beginning of the project was significant and although she could not finish out the semester with us her work deserves recognition. She now resides in New Hampshire.

Research Question

How do people get their information about city services (ie. neighborhood concerns, housing, and energy assistance)? And What city services do people want to hear about?