Community Partner Peer Mentoring & Advocacy

Partnerships between communities and higher educational institutions as a strategy for social change are gaining recognition and momentum. Despite being formed with the best of intentions, however, authentic partnerships are very difficult to achieve. While academic partners have extensively documented their experiences and lessons learned, the voices of community partners are often absent. We believe that if true partnerships are to be achieved, community partners must harness their own experiences, lessons learned, and collective wisdom into a national, organized effort.

With guidance from a planning committee of community leaders, twenty-three experienced community partners from across the U.S. convened for Achieving the Promise of Authentic Community-Higher Education Partnerships: A Community Partner Summit held April 24-26, 2006 at the Wingspread Conference Center in Racine, Wisconsin.

Summit participants formed a network that has continued meeting through two action-oriented workgroups designed to increase the number and effectiveness of community-higher education partnerships and to ensure that communities are involved in dialogues and decisions about these partnerships. In January 2008, these workgroups broadened participation beyond those who attended the Summit.

For more information about the Summit, including reports and other resources that came out of the Summit, click here.

Workgroups

Are you a community member, community partner or community-academic liaison interested in connecting with your peers to build greater capacity, support each other in your work, and strengthen the collective network of community partners engaging in community-higher education partnerships? If so, consider joining a Community Partner Workgroup!

The Mentoring Workgroup is developing and implementing peer mentoring and leadership development activities that build the capacity of community partners to engage in authentic community-higher education partnerships and succeed in their community-building work.

The Policy Workgroup is developing and advocating for policies that support authentic community-higher education partnerships, working in collaboration with other national groups, community partners, funders, and academic allies.

With the support of the Policy Workgroup, CCPH and a group of participants from the Community Partner Summit submitted statements in response to requests for public comments from the National Institutes of Health on its National Center for Research Resources Strategic Plan, and its Peer Review process. Click here for the statement submitted on the National Center for Research Resources' Strategic Plan, and here for the statement submitted on the Peer Review process.

In June 2008, CCPH submitted a statement, "Realizing the Promise of Community Engagement in Research," in response to NIH's Request for Information (RFI): To Solicit Input and Ideas for Roadmap Trans-NIH Strategic Initiatives.

CCPH hosted two conference calls in November and December 2007 to provide an overview of the Mentoring and Policy Workgroups and opportunities for involvement. Click here for meeting minutes from these calls.

For more information on joining a workgroup, please contact CCPH at ccphuw@u.washington.edu or (206) 666-3406.

Join the Community Partner Listserv!

We invite community members, community partners and community-academic liaisons who are involved or interested in community-higher education partnerships to join the Community Partner Listserv (electronic discussion group). The listserv was established to help build the capacity of community partners through information-sharing, collaborative problem-solving and advocacy. When you join, be sure to introduce yourself and your involvement or interest in community-higher education partnerships.

For information on other CCPH managed listservs, click here.

Community Partner Educational Conference Call Series
May - June 2008

Registration for calls in the series is now closed. To be notified when audiofiles and handouts from the calls are posted on this webpage, join the Community Partner Listserv.

May 27, 2008: Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) as a Strategy for Social Change: Perspectives from a Community-Academic Partnership

• What is CBPR? Why is it increasingly being used as a strategy for social change?
• How have community partners used CBPR to benefit their communities?
• What are the challenges, and lessons learned in working with institutional partners on CBPR partnerships?
• What needs to happen so that community partners can truly engage in authentic CBPR partnerships?
• What are the responsibilities of academic partners to their community partners in these types of partnerships?

Speakers: Omega Wilson, West End Revitalization Association, Mebane, North Carolina Sacoby Wilson, University of South Carolina, Columbia Chris Heaney, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Moderator: Ann-Gel Palermo, Harlem Community and Academic Partnership (HCAP), New York, NY

Click here to listen to the audio recording. Please note: The audiofile can only be played on RealPlayer (free download)

Below are 2 articles authored by the speakers (Omega Wilson, Sacoby Wilson, Chris Heaney) published in the journal Progress in Community Health Partnerships, along with the transcript of an interview with the speakers

Use of EPA Collaborative Problem-Solving Model to Obtain Environmental Justice in North Carolina

The West End Revitalization Association's Community-Owned and -Managed Research Model: Development, Implementation, and Action

Podcast Interview Transcript

June 13, 2008: An Environmental Scan of Community Engagement in Health Research

• What's the current climate for community engagement in research?
• As health research funding agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, increase their emphasis on clinical and translational research and CBPR, the question arises: what do we mean by community engagement in research?
• How are community leaders organizing at local and national levels to impact research priorities, funding and conduct?

Elmer Freeman, Center for Community Health Education, Research, and Service, Boston, MA and member of the U.S. National Institutes of Health's Council of Public Representatives

Ella Greene-Moton, National Prevention Research Center (PRC) Community Board Representative (a program of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention), Past Chair of the National PRC Community Committee, Past Chair of the CCPH Board, and member of the National PRC Steering Committee

Moderator: Syed Ahmed, Center for Healthy Communities at the Medical College of Wisconsin (Milwaukee) and member of the U.S. National Institutes of Health's Council of Public Representatives

Click here to listen to the audio recording. Please note: The audiofile can only be played on RealPlayer (free download)

There are no handouts for this call.

June 24, 2008: Engaging in CBPR: Tips & Strategies for Community Leaders

• How do community leaders concerned about the health of their communities get connected with researchers who share their interests?
• Why would they even want to?
• What resources are out there to help support community leaders to develop and sustain effective CBPR partnerships with researchers?
• What infrastructure needs to be in place in community-based organizations to engage in research partnerships and conduct research?

Speakers: Ann-Gel Palermo, Harlem Community and Academic Partnership, New York, NY

Lola Sablan-Santos, Guam Communications Network, Long Beach, CA

Randy Jackson, Canadian Aboriginal AIDS Network, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Moderator: CCPH Board Member and Community Partner/Activist Susan Gust, Minneapolis, MN

Click here for a summary of the call.

Click here to listen to the audio recording. Please note: The audiofile can only be played on RealPlayer (free download)

There are no handouts for this call.

For more information: please visit the Community Partner Peer Mentoring and Advocacy website at http://depts.washington.edu/ccph/cps.html, or contact CCPH at ccphuw@u.washington.edu or (206) 666-3406.