Manuals, Guides, and Tools

Building Alliances of Women: A Manual for Holding Workshops on Women’s Values
by Institute for Women's Policy Research (March 2008)

This manual provides an overview of how to hold workshops on women’s values in your community. The goals of this work are 1) to build new and supportive relationships among women from different backgrounds and organizations in a community, 2) to root agendas for change in policy and practice in the values women bring to public life, and 3) through both, to promote women’s perspectives in all kinds of organizing and political decision making.

I Knew I Could Do This Work: Seven Strategies That Promote Women’s Activism and Leadership in Unions (Participant Handout)
by Michelle Kaminski, Ph.D. (December 2007)

This guide will help union facilitators lead a discussion group about how to promote women’s leadership in their unions. It is based on the report by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research

I Knew I Could Do This Work: Seven Strategies that Promote Women’s Activism and Leadership in Unions (Discussion Guide)
by Michelle Kaminski, Ph.D. (December 2007)

This guide will help union facilitators lead a discussion group about how to promote women’s leadership in their unions. It is based on the report by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

The Status of Women in Your County: A Community Research Tool
by Misha Werschkul, Barbara Gault, and Heidi Hartmann (November 2004)

This tool is a joint project of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research and the James A. & Faith Knight Foundation, to build capacity among community groups to assess and track the status of women in their regions. The tool provides instructions for finding information on the status of women in your county. County-level indicators can inform local policy by identifying areas of need and providing a context for local policy agendas. The suggested indicators in this tool match the state-level indicators used in the Status of Women in the States reports, published by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research.

Assessing the Status of Women at the County Level: A Manual for Researchers and Advocates
by Misha Werschkul, Barbara Gault, and Heidi Hartmann (October 2004)

This manual provides instructions for analyzing the status of women at the county level. The manual allows advocates, researchers, and others within each state to assess women’s status at the local level, rank counties, and make cross-county comparisons, by ranking and grading each county on a set of indicators. Such analyses can be conducted for an entire state, a portion of a state, or a region including portions of several states.

Marriage and Poverty: An Annotated Bibliography
by Hedieh Rahmanou, Amy LeMar (April 2002)

This annotated bibliography is designed to provide researchers, policymakers, advocates, and the general public with an overview of the debate and research surrounding the promotion of marriage as a solution to reducing poverty. In addition to newspaper articles familiarizing the reader with the current debate, topics covered in this bibliography include: economic insecurity and single motherhood, child welfare and single motherhood, factors that influence marital decisions, race and family formation, the conservative and feminist perspectives, and current policy proposals.

Models for Action: Making Research Work for Women
by Institute for Women's Policy Research (January 2002)

The Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR) presents this resource as a way of helping statebased advocates, researchers, and policymakers utilize The Status of Women in the States reports to further their policy agendas by drawing attention to the issues critical to the status of women in their states.

The ABCs of Public Financing for Early Care and Education: A Research and Advocacy Resource Book
by Jennifer Johnson, Hedieh Rahmanou, April Shaw, Melissa Neuman, and Stacie Golin (December 2000)

This reference book is designed to provide researchers and advocates with tools to investigate issues related to early education and care financing in the United States. These materials can be used to explore various factors that contribute to the current shortage of high-quality early care and education programs. For example, the enclosed reviews of research will assist advocates, policymakers, and researchers in assessing local child care supply and demand.1 The included cost/estimate models provide examples of ways to estimate the need for and benefits of additional public investments in early care and education for children and working families.

Status of Women in the States: State Advisory Committee Toolkit
by Amy Caiazza, PhD and April Shaw (December 1999)

Welcome! This set of guidelines is intended to introduce you to the Institute for Women's Policy Research and its Status of Women in the States project. We look forward to working with you on this project and hope you find these materials useful.