Student/Faculty Participatory Research Approaches: Toward an Emergent Model to Support Students in Addressing Local Community Issues through Action Research

Community based participatory research (CBPR) is a collaborative approach to research between community members and researchers to bring about new knowledge related to a community condition, issue, or problem. It is based on core principles that include: relation to relevant community issues, utilization of community decision making, it must be planned and systematic, take on existing community problems, and create new knowledge. It is essentially research based in a community, implemented with community groups (Hills & Mullett, 2000).

The use of the following principles are integral elements of CBPR (Isreal, Schulz, Parker, Becker, Allen, & Guzman, 2003). (1) “CBPR recognizes community as a unit of identity. (2) CBPR builds on strengths and resources within the community. (3) CBPR facilitates collaborative, equal partnerships in all phases of the research. (4) CBPR promotes co-learning and capacity building among all partners. (5) CBPR integrates and achieves a balance between research and action for the mutual benefit of all partners. (6) CBPR emphasizes local relevance of public health problems and ecological perspectives that recognize and attend to the multiple determinants of health and disease. (7) CBPR involves systems development through a cyclical and iterative process. (8) CBPR disseminates findings and knowledge gained to all partners and involves all partners in the dissemination process. (9) CBPR involves a long term process and commitment”(Isreal, et al., 2003 pp. 55-58). This essential shift in focus from the traditional researcher/subject interaction has contributed greatly to recent social research studies in community contexts.

Community engagement's core principles directly align with social work values. Those core principles include: empowerment, social justice, equal participation, self-determination, and fairness (NIH, 2011). They go a step beyond community based research, and honor community members' ability to take an active role in confronting community issues by taking action, and being cohorts in new knowledge development. This values based orientation makes integrating community based participatory research (CBPR) an ideal imperative in working alongside students in order to address the issues that excite them.

In this roundtable, students and faculty from a historically black college and university (HBCU) will share experiences and facilitate dialogue on a collaborative project that stemmed from topics and questions students wanted to explore based on issues within the local community. Facilitators invite scholars interested in exploring collaborative research partnerships with students and communities.

It will focus on building capacity, exploring approaches, and gaining insight into the development of emergent approaches to student/faculty/community partnerships within schools of social work based on local community issues. Participants will share experiences on projects centered on the school to prison pipeline, youth mental health, intervention model development, and asset based community development.

Questions explored will include:

1. What are the experiences of student/faculty research partnerships? 2. How can faculty work to support students in addressing questions vital to their interests that address local problems? 3. What are some barriers to developing these approaches? 4. How can social work research and education adapt to the changing needs of students and the need for creative student engagement?