Using SNA to Find Homes For the Orphans

Using SNA to Find Homes For the Orphans

Background

I started volunteering in an orphanage in my hometown, Nanjing, in China back when I was still in high school. Although the care workers and we volunteers tried our best to make the kids feel like home there but at heart we know that the orphanage just cannot be home to every child. Moreover, after having volunteered there as a care worker for toddlers and children of pre-school age for some time, it was not hard to find out that the orphanage did not have the resources to fully develop the children’s potential, be it physical or intellectual, even though it is fully supported by the local government as well as a number of charities. That is why each time a child is adopted by a family, we would all feel happy for the child. Although we would miss those who left the orphanage but we know that living in a normal family and having a real home would be the best option for them. Therefore, the orphanage always hoped for more couples or families that meet the requirements for adoption to visit the orphanage and become foster parents/families later on. However, the orphanage acts passively in the entire process: those who would like to adopt a child will need to contact one of the partnering charities first and schedule an appointment with the orphanage through the charities for a visit. The procedures are especially complex when potential foster parents/families are from a foreign country.

Why is SNA relevant (and helpful) and how?

To be more actively engaged in creating a bigger chance in finding matched foster families for the children, the orphanage will need to reach out to more people who are qualified both within China as well as around the world to create. Social Network Analysis (SNA) provides an efficient and effective way to get in contact with potential adopters through the network of existing foster families and partnering charities.

In order to gather data for SNA, surveys will be used for compiling both the network data and the attribute data. Surveys will be distributed to the target audience through partnering charities. The survey will ask for names and contact information for those who answered. The key survey question for the network data will be:

“How often have you turned to the charity or someone whom you know (please leave her/his name) for information on becoming a foster parent?

1. Not at all (I have never thought about it);

2. Sometimes (I have friends who have adopted children and I want to learn more about it);

3. Often (I’m interested in becoming a foster parent and need more information about the adoption process);

4. Very often (I decide to become a foster parent and need to understand the adoption procedure clearly).”

The attributes will include: gender, age group, marital status, number of children, annual income, country of residence, have friends who are foster parents, etc.

To prepare for the network analysis, the valued network data will be dichotomized into zero being 1 and one being >= 2. The attribute data will be incorporated into the visualization and analysis of the network data.

For this network analysis, Node Centrality Measures contain more relevant information than Whole-Network. The “influencer”, which is the person who plays the role of a “promoter” of becoming a foster parent, can be identified by:

• High Degree (total number of connections)
• High OutDegree (mostly spreads information to others)
• Medium to high Betweenness (important connector between nodes)

The potential candidates of a foster parent can be identified by:

• High InDegree (mostly seeks information from others)
• High Eigenvector (connects to “influencers”)

Important identifiers for the potential candidates will also include some of the attributes. Finding the ideal combination of attributes like “Age group”, “marital status”, “number of children”, “annual income” and “Have friends who are foster parents” along with the centrality measures will help us locate matched candidates and hopefully future foster parents.

Such a network analysis benefits both the orphanage and the partnering charities.

• For the orphanage: Instead of communicating only through a partnering charity and wait for a delayed response, the orphanage is able to connect with her/him directly, respond to the candidate in time, schedule appointments for a visit and play an active role in starting a new adoption process at a later stage.

• For the partnering charities: they have more information about their regular contacts regarding their knowledge in becoming a foster parent. They can invite the “influencers” to be volunteers for adoption-related events.

Anli Jin

MIM

Hult International Business School