The Stakeholder Working Group for the Mid-Atlantic Regional Assessment (MARA) is working to ensure ongoing two-way communications between stakeholders and the MARA research team. Our initial efforts have been to identify stakeholders and ask them to participate either as full or corresponding members of the Stakeholder Advisory Committee. Stakeholders are both clients for information from the MARA and participants in the assessment process through providing information and advice.
The first activity of the Advisory Committee is the meeting at University Park October 19-20. The purpose of the meeting is the provide an interchange of information and ideas. The MARA research team seeks information from stakeholders on the questions that the assessment should ask, the methods used to answer those questions, and how stakeholders can most productively contribute to the assessment. The MARA team will outline their current plans for the assessment.
Later in the assessment process the Stakeholder Working Group will turn to stakeholders for information and advice on how results of the assessment can best be disseminated both to stakeholder groups and the general public.