Initiating and Sustaining Community-Engaged Research: A Facilitated Workshop Linking Theories, Methods, and Strategies

Background: Since Jane Addams, community research has been a hallmark of social work scholarship and practice.  Under this broad umbrella is community-engaged research, an approach in which the researcher partners with a community in ways that has community members driving or shaping the investigative enterprise.   Community involvement can include framing research questions; identifying, gathering and analyzing data; or using results for community capacity building, advocacy and resource acquisition. Often, creative and participatory strategies are employed, such as photovoice or digital storytelling. This approach runs counter to those studies that appropriate local knowledge, but provide little in terms of benefits, expertise or resources.  Community-engaged research can be a critical component in theory and practice development grounded in the principles of empowerment and social justice.

Objectives: The primary objective of this workshop is to build a network of community and neighborhood researchers in order to (a) assist doctoral students, early career investigators, and established scholars in incorporating appropriate theories and methodologies into their work and (b) support the development of high-quality, innovative community-engaged scholarship. The workshop is intended to create opportunities for community-engaged researchers to network, share resources, and develop new scholarly projects.

Content: Workshop content will reflect the general community and neighborhood scholarly interests of participants as well as the specific theories and methods participants are employing. Substantive foci will include: an overview of community-engaged research; establishing and maintaining community research partnerships; differing mechanisms for and degrees of community involvement; connecting community theory and practice; balancing demands of the academy with the needs of the community; addressing race, class, gender and other cultural differences; contending with ethical challenges; “owning” and disseminating data; and funding strategies. Facilitators will share lessons learned from their research. 

Approach: Using the highly successful 2014, 2015, and 2016 workshops of the M&O cluster as blueprints, this proposed community-engaged research workshop will be dedicated to small group dialogue led by six co-facilitators who have different conceptual and methodological approaches, and who represent early, mid-career, and senior scholars. One or two co-facilitators will be assigned to a small group of workshop participants organized around a substantive topic. In small groups, participants will discuss and receive feedback from co-facilitators on an issue of concern related to their scholarship. Post-workshop, participants will be encouraged to remain in contact with co-facilitators.

To stimulate advance interest, co-facilitators will advertise the workshop via established macro social work listservs (e.g., SSWR special interest groups, ACOSA, CSWE). Participants pre-registering for the workshop (via an email to the workshop’s lead facilitator) will be asked to submit a short paragraph (a) identifying their general scholarly interests related to community research issues and (b) summarizing a substantive, methodological, or theoretical issue related to an in-progress piece of scholarship they would like to focus on during the workshop. This information will be used by co-facilitators in pre-planning to organize small groups and thus to maximize workshop time for dialogue and learning.