Gaining Trust and Information: Working with Low-Income Men and Women in a Qualitative Research Study

Background & Purpose

Beginning in 2005, Milwaukee County, Wisconsin suspended the child support obligations of incarcerated non-custodial parents (NCP) and reinstated the child support order six months post-incarceration. Policy makers were particularly interested in whether reduced financial hardship among incarcerated NCPs would lead to improved economic well-being and child support payments post-incarceration. The overall purpose of this natural policy experiment was to enhance Milwaukee County's child support collection performance. The implementation of the policy provided an opportunity to measure the impact of suspended child support orders during incarceration on the subsequent earnings and child support payments of the NCPs. The qualitative component of this research study, of which this paper is focused, explored parental perspectives on the suspension of child support orders during and post incarceration.

Methods

The process used to locate and recruit participants in a qualitative study is important for minimizing bias and obtaining a representative sample. Generally, participant recruitment occurs through purposive sampling. It is a recruitment method which stratifies participants according to preselected criteria relevant to a particular research question.

The recruitment strategy utilized in this study was a “random purposeful” sampling scheme designed to ensure that cases were selected from a population of NCPs that had contact with the Milwaukee County Department of Child Support Enforcement regarding the child support obligation suspension policy as recorded in administrative records. The formerly incarcerated NCP had to have been out of prison for at least six months prior to the interview. The informants were contacted by a recruitment letter in the mail, a subsequent home visit, and/or a follow up phone call to schedule an interview.

Results

After five months in the field, we had completed only six successful interviews. Our initial plan was to interview a sample of NCPs, followed by a custodial parent with whom the NCP had a child support obligation, in order to be able to interview matched pairs. We encountered significant challenges to scheduling interviews with NCPs (men) in the sample. Therefore, we revised our recruitment strategy. Three months after our revision to recruitment methods we had interviewed an additional fourteen participants.

Conclusions and Implications

The sampling strategy used in this study to gather information from poor men and women was random sampling using an administrative dataset unique to Wisconsin. This method of recruitment posed unique challenges to the researcher. It was difficult to gain initial access to prospective subjects, to persuade individuals that there would be no negative repercussions from participation, and to obtain their consent to interview. It was understandable that these men were distrustful and hesitant to participate in the study. Many had experienced consistently negative interactions with government officials, police, and people in positions of authority. This paper discusses the revised recruitment strategies used to increase our sample size specifically for men and reports on the physical and mental health challenges of the sample.