Session: Engaging Focal Populations in Study Co-Design to Embed Community and Youth Voice in Equitable, Actionable Research (Society for Social Work and Research 29th Annual Conference)

This symposium highlights three projects that use youth participatory research and community-based participatory research to explore issues relevant to young people with foster care experience, transition-age youth served by social workers in social safety net organizations, and Black families experiencing housing-related challenges. Each of our project teams collaborated with members of our focal populations to co-design and implement our studies to ensure the research more authentically reflected the perspectives of the populations. In sharing power with community contributors through each step of the research process, we also sought to establish research practices that center the voices of those impacted by the research as the standard method for ensuring research rigor both within our organization and across the field of social science research. The first project explored racial/ethnic identity development among current and former foster youth and how these young people encountered and incorporated cultural information into their shifting racial/ethnic identity. The study team includes a group of youth research advisors, young people with foster care experience who conduct local study recruitment, and social science research staff who support the co-design of study procedures from protocol development to making meaning of the results. The second project details methods for generating research compilations that incorporate both the latest social work research and current considerations from groups of transition age youth to develop best practice toolkits for social workers who serve transition age youth in the child welfare, juvenile justice, housing systems where the unique needs of such youth are often overlooked. The third project co-produced knowledge on housing supports and services to advance community change for Black families experiencing housing related challenges in a community with high rates of unmet housing needs. The project engaged community members, local program leaders, and researchers with a wide range of lived, methodological, and substantive experience to explore the impact of housing challenges and community protective factors on the economic security and well-being of Black mothers with young children. Presenters will share their study findings as well as lessons learned from the community engagement process. The panel discussant will then invite panel members to share additional reflections about how research strategies and approaches can shift to better engage contributors outside traditional academic and research organizations. The symposium will conclude with audience interaction and discussion.