Recruitment Program
The Participant Core Recruitment Program offers support to scientists and research labs in their efforts to recruit and communicate with participants. Three current goals of the Recruitment Program are to:
- Maintain the RAD volunteer registry
- Centralize multi-lab recruitment and coordinate scheduling efforts for special populations
- Assist labs with developing and implementing a recruitment plan
RAD Volunteer Registry
RAD is Boys Town's research volunteer registry custom-built for researchers to recruit participants who are typically developing or who have a hearing, balance, speech, or language concern. The RAD registry has over 15,000 potential participants with new names added regularly. RAD can be used to find and recruit people within communities that are typically underserved by research.
Centralized and Coordinated Multi-lab Recruitment
We facilitate coordinated recruitment of special populations that are overlapping between multiple labs. Coordinated recruitment encourages transparency in communication and scheduling between labs to ensure participants have a good experience. It is expected that lab staff contribute to the overall community engagement and recruitment efforts of the entire group.
Recruitment Planning
We maintain a list of all ongoing studies, their participant samples, and timelines for data collection. This gives us a good idea of upcoming researcher needs and helps us evaluate whether our current efforts will be sufficient in providing participants or if we need to recruit additional participants. The list also facilitates coordinated recruitment across labs and across siblings within a family.
