Frequently Asked Questions
About the Shafter Community Survey
As you may have heard, earlier this year the Community Action Partnership of Kern’s (CAPK) Shafter Youth Center officially sunset its After School Program. While programs are not currently operating out of the center, efforts to support the Shafter community are still very much active. This survey is to help support those efforts.
CAPK (Community Action Partnership of Kern), established in 1965, administers more than a dozen programs in Kern County aimed at meeting the needs of children, families and individuals. This includes Head Start programs, food banks, assistance with filing tax returns, and other programs.
HARC (Health Assessment and Research for Communities) is a non-profit organization located in Riverside County. HARC provides research and evaluation services that support healthy communities. CAPK contracted with HARC to do the Shafter Community Survey.
This survey is to help us understand how prepared our community is for climate-related disasters and emergencies. We want to learn about your experiences, concerns, and what resources or support you think would help Shafter become more resilient to events like extreme heat, wildfires, or power outages. The survey is being done in two ways: with flyers mailed to households (with a link to do the survey online) or with paper surveys at community events and with our community partners. Residents are asked to take the survey only once—either online or with a paper survey.
We are conducting this survey to identify the specific needs of our community when it comes to climate and disaster resiliency, youth programs, and job support. Your input will guide us in planning programs, services, and improvements at the Shafter Youth Center.
CAPK has secured funding for this survey from the Strategic Growth Council of California’s Community Resiliency Centers Program.
Flyers for the survey will be mailed out in the first two weeks of November 2025. Paper copies of the survey (available through our community partners) will be available from November 2025 through January 2026.
If you got a survey flyer in the mail, use the link or QR code on the flyer to take the survey online. If you didn’t get a flyer in the mail, then you can get a paper copy of the survey from one of our community partners. For example, paper copies of the survey will be available at the Richland Family Resource Center.
All adult residents (18 years+) who live in the City of Shafter or neighboring unincorporated communities (Thomas Lane, Smith Corner, Cherokee Strip, Mexican Colony, and Gossamer Grove) can take the survey. Please only one survey per adult.
Your privacy is our priority. HARC follows strict confidentiality practices to protect your information. We never ask for information like your social security number or credit card number.
All your information that is collected in the survey will be completely confidential. That means that no one will be able to connect your answers from the survey back to you. All of your answers will be reported in bulk with others—your answers will never be reported alone.
All data will be held on password-protected computers and only utilized by professional researchers who are trained in ethics and how to protect survey participants to the absolute maximum.
Survey results will be available in Spring 2026. CAPK will organize a community meeting to share the results, and easy-to-read infographics will be provided that summarize the results. Further information will be posted here when available.
If you have any other questions about the Shafter Community Survey, please contact the HARC offices by phone (760-404-1945) or email (staff@HARCdata.org).