| Course | MSW 521 Social Work Response to Mass Violence and Disasters |
|---|---|
| Week | 5 |
| Paper type | Post-impact needs survey |
| Length | About 620 words, 5 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Chamberlain University |
| Program | Master of Social Work (MSW) |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for MSW 521 Week 5
Post-Impact Needs Survey for Households Displaced by the Fictional Harbor View Explosion: A Twelve-Item Card for People Without Sleep or Papers, and a Method for Finding Those Who Never Went to the Shelter
Student Name
Chamberlain University
MSW 521: Social Work Response to Mass Violence and Disasters
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
Post-Impact Needs Survey for Households Displaced by the Fictional Harbor View Explosion: A Twelve-Item Card for People Without Sleep or Papers, and a Method for Finding Those Who Never Went to the Shelter
Why the Shelter Is the Wrong Place to Start
Of the 140 displaced residents, only 22 slept at the Red Cross shelter. Most went to relatives, friends or motels. A survey run only at the shelter would describe the smallest and best-served group. Community assessment methods for emergencies sample households across an affected area (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2019); here the area no longer exists, so the sample has to come from a list.
Finding People Who Are Not in Shelters
The list is built from the building's rent roll, provided by the property manager, the family assistance center's registrations and the gas utility's account holders at the address. Workers call each household, text when calls fail and visit the two motels where the county has placed families. Each household is surveyed once.
The Survey Card
Table 1
Survey Card Items
| Item | Answer options |
|---|---|
| Where are you sleeping tonight? | Shelter / relatives or friends / motel / car / other |
| How many people, including you? | Number |
| Can you stay there for the next 7 nights? | Yes / no / not sure |
| Do you need replacement medicines in the next 3 days? | Yes / no |
| Do you have a phone that works? | Yes / no |
| Do you need replacement ID or documents? | Yes / no |
| Do you have transportation to work or school? | Yes / no / not working |
| Are children missing school? | Yes / no / no children |
| Do you need clothing or a coat? | Yes / no |
| Did you have renter's insurance? | Yes / no / not sure |
| Would you like a call from someone to talk about how you are doing? | Yes / no |
| Best number or way to reach you | Open |
Note. Note. Each item is linked to a service available this week; see text.
Each Item Earns Its Place
Every item has a service behind it: housing staff for the sleeping questions, the county pharmacy program for medicines, a phone donation, the clerk's office for documents, bus passes, the school district's liaison, a clothing closet, an insurance navigator and behavioral health staff for the call. An item with no service is left off, because asking it raises a hope nobody can meet.
Who Asks
Pairs of county staff, one a Spanish speaker, using the card as written. Workers do not add questions.
Workers carry a one-page sheet listing each service and its phone number, so that a yes can be answered on the spot when it is urgent, such as medicine needed tonight.
How the Paper Gets Back
Cards are placed in a sealed envelope at the end of each shift and taken to the data desk at the family assistance center. Entries are made by 6 p.m., and each yes is routed to its service the same evening. Paper cards are shredded once entries are checked.
What It Does Not Ask
It does not ask immigration status, who residents blame or whether they have mental health symptoms. Those questions belong in other conversations, if at all. The call offer is a gentler route to the people who will need more, since survivors with mounting losses are at greater risk (Norris et al., 2002).
References
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2019). Community Assessment for Public Health Emergency Response (CASPER) toolkit (3rd ed.). U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Norris, F. H., Friedman, M. J., Watson, P. J., Byrne, C. M., Diaz, E., & Kaniasty, K. (2002). 60,000 disaster victims speak: Part I. An empirical review of the empirical literature, 1981-2001. Psychiatry: Interpersonal and Biological Processes, 65(3), 207-239. https://doi.org/10.1521/psyc.65.3.207.20173
MSW 521 Week 5 instructions, in plain terms
The needs survey assignment is two documents in one file. The first is the survey itself, short enough to fit on a card, written for people who have not slept and may have no documents. Close items wherever possible. The second is the method: who is asked, where they are found, who does the asking and what happens to the paper afterward. Find people outside the shelters, since those who go to shelters are usually a small, well-served share. Make each item earn its place by linking it to a service that exists now. Say what the survey deliberately does not ask. Explain how each answer gets to a service before the day ends.
Inside the MSW 521 Week 5 example
The paper opens with the 22 of 140 displaced residents who used the shelter and contrasts area sampling in the CDC's toolkit, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (2019), with a list built from the rent roll, center registrations and utility accounts. A section describes calls, texts and motel visits. Table 1 gives twelve closed items from sleeping location to an offer of a call, plus a contact line. Each item is matched to a service, such as the county pharmacy program or a clothing closet, and workers carry a sheet to answer urgent needs on the spot. Paired workers, one Spanish speaking, use the card as written. Cards go to a data desk daily, and the survey leaves out status and blame, citing Norris et al. (2002).
Reading the MSW 521 Week 5 grading rubric
The heaviest deduction is for an item nobody can act on, since asking about a need with no service behind it raises hope and then disappoints. The next is a survey run only where people are easy to find. Faculty credit a sampling method that reaches the dispersed population, items written for exhausted respondents and a clear chain from card to service. Saying what the survey leaves out shows judgment about burden and harm. Who asks, and with what language access, matters. Faculty expect the card itself to appear in full. Sources for the method should be cited in APA, and the card should be short enough to use at a motel door.
MSW 521 Week 5 help from the desk
Surveys most often lose points by asking about needs no one will meet. Next is the shelter-only sample, which describes the best-served residents. Some cards are long, open-ended and full of mental health screening items that exhausted people cannot answer and nobody will act on that week. Others never say how answers travel from paper to service. When the event you invented is a tornado crossing a rural township, the same two documents apply: a short card and a method for finding people who did not come to you. A survey drafted for your incident would test each item by naming the service that answers it.
Get a MSW-521 Week 5 example written to your instructions
Send the Week 5 instructions with any item bank or domain list attached to it, and a custom needs survey with its method section comes back inside 24 to 48 hours, the first one free. Tell us the event and the setting your section assigned and the items are written for that population rather than for a generic one.
More MSW 521 papers and MSW samples
- MSW 521 Week 1: Disaster Threshold Post
- MSW 521 Week 2: Gas Explosion Phase Analysis
- MSW 521 Week 3: Activation Checklist
- MSW 521 Week 4: Family Assistance Center Plan
- MSW 521 Week 6: Public Message Draft
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- MSW 525 Week 5: Play Session Write-up
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MSW 521 Week 5 questions, answered
Does this have to be a real validated instrument?
Usually not. Most sections want a purpose-built short form for a specific event, and will accept items adapted from published rapid assessment tools if the source is named. The example borrows structure from that literature, cites what it borrowed, and keeps its own items plain. Where a section does require a validated tool, say so and the example is rebuilt around it.
How do I handle sampling when nobody knows the population?
You say what you did instead. The example describes a canvass by street with a stated stopping rule, plus collection points at a distribution site and a clinic, then states plainly which groups that combination underrepresents. Naming the gap earns more than pretending to a sampling frame nobody could have built in the first week.
Can the survey ask about mental health at all?
It can ask about sleep, safety and whether someone has anyone to stay with, which is the kind of item a first-week survey can act on. What it does not do is screen for a disorder, because a screening result creates an obligation nobody at a distribution site can meet. The example keeps that boundary explicit in its limitations section.
Where can I find a free MSW 521 Week 5 sample paper?
The full MSW 521 Week 5 post-impact needs survey and sampling method for households displaced by a fictional explosion is printed here whole, notes included.
How does the MSW 521 Week 5 sample find people who skipped the shelter?
By building a list from the rent roll, the family center's registrations and utility accounts, then calling, texting and visiting the motels where families were placed.