UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The Penn State Social Science Research Institute’s Community-Engaged Research, Action, and Partnership (CERAP) unit recently hosted their first Summer Institute to provide an inclusive space for community members and academic researchers to develop knowledge and skills on community-engaged research methods, partnerships and practice.
The two-day event included a keynote presentation from Melody Goodman, professor of biostatistics and dean of the School of Global Public Health at New York University; a roundtable discussion featuring community researchers; and a workshop that focused on developing the community-engaged research process.
CERAP co-director and professor of psychology, Dawn Witherspoon gave the welcoming remarks about CERAP’s services including their monthly huddles, other workshops and announced the awardees of CERAP’s new seed grant program.
CERAP co-director and professor of biobehavioral health, Lori Francis, introduced Erica Frankenberg, SSRI associate director and professor of education and of demography, to discuss how CERAP's work in policy engagement integrated well with SSRI’s strategic plan.
“There are powerful ways that Penn State is doing this [policy] work and why it matters across disciplines,” Frankenberg said. “Interdisciplinary work makes our work stronger.”
Christian Connell, director of SSRI’s Child Maltreatment Solutions Network and the Ken Young Family Professor in Healthy Children, and Taylor Scott, associate research professor of human development and family studies and executive director of the Research Translation Platform — part of SSRI’s Evidence-to-Impact Collaborative — led a training workshop on engaging with policy makers and agencies at all levels of government.
Connell discussed working with government agencies, noting that the strategy for working with agencies was somewhat different than working with policy makers.
“When we meet with state agencies, we create a plan to meet routinely and have open channels of communication,” Connell noted.
Scott outlined the challenges and benefits of working with policymakers by asking the question: “How do I situate my research to target an audience?”
“We must be introspective and how do we avoid the stereotypes of research through connecting authentically by listening to end users’ interests, valuing community knowledge, and understanding end users’ research questions,” Scott said.
Clarence Lang, the Susan Welch Dean of the College of the Liberal Arts and professor of African American studies, introduced the community partners roundtable while emphasizing the importance of interactive research.
“Research that is attentive to rural and urban communities, that focuses on educating people in democracy, critical thinking, reason, empathy, reliance on data and argumentation versus opinion, appreciation of human diversity is part of Penn State’s land grant mission,” Lang said.
Robin Perry-Smith, Penn State Extension educator for strategic initiatives and urban engagement, moderated a community panel with Brenda Alton, director of community relations and spiritual care and chaplain at UPMC and community ambassador for Penn State’s PACT (Parents and Children Together); Gloria Merrick, executive director of the Latino Hispanic American Community Center and PACT community partner; Rick Sayles, co-founder of Penn’s Civilians and PACT community partner; and Amy Wible, Preschool Program Director of CenClear Early Childhood Division. The roundtable discussion reaffirmed the event’s theme of building genuine long-lasting relationships.
“We’re constantly contacted by researchers and groups,” said Wible. “However, what made the Penn State partnership unique was that we had a mutual mission that brought us together. It was a win-win situation that would benefit the population we serve and provide the research that they needed to make change.”
Merrick echoed the sentiment.
“What I learned about working with Penn State and PACT is that they are more interested in what they can do in our community,” Merrick said. “Partnerships with a university come in with tools that we [community orgs] don’t have, and we provide the other half like human resources.”
The discussion narrowed in on themes of trust, strong communication and reciprocity when it came to building and maintaining relationships between universities and community partners. Additionally, other issues were brought up including data usage, cultural humility and cultural competency.
“Be honest about the tension, especially when it comes to who owns the data and how it will be used or disseminated,” Sayles said.
Alton added, “Nothing makes a relationship better than connection. Show up and continue growing together.”
“When you save a seat for me, that’s making time for me and my community,” Perry-Smith said.
The first day of activities capped off with Goodman’s keynote presentation about building research literacy and measuring and evaluating community-academic partnerships. Goodman discussed her work on Community Research Fellows Training (CRFT), which is a didactic training program developed to enhance partnerships between academic researchers and community partners.
“Partnership and engagement are not the same,” Goodman said. “Which is why it’s important to understand how the engagement level in a partnership is developing and to what extent.”
CERAP’s Summer Institute continued with a second day of activities focused on creative and youth participatory action research. Marit Dewhurst, professor and director of art education at the City College of New York; Kristen Goessling, director of participatory research at the Penn State Center — Philadelphia and CERAP co-director; Amanda Wager, Canada Research Chair in Community-Engaged Research and professor of education at Vancouver Island University; and Dana Wright, professor at the School of Education at Northeastern University, led a two-part bootcamp that included discussing conceptual foundations and a practical applications workshop with presented examples, small group activities and opportunities for discussion.
Following the themes of the first day, the team’s leads emphasized building connections and trust between partners. Participants used a combination of tools including art supplies, movement exercises and music to demonstrate participatory action research methods in real time.
“It’s not always about research; it’s about building our relationships,” Wager said.
“We are better when we bring people together,” Goessling noted.
CERAP’s co-directors hope to hold more opportunities like their Summer Institute to inform and train academic and community researchers on community-university partnerships. The full report document is available here and the event's photo gallery is available here.
CERAP is led by an interdisciplinary team of community-engaged faculty and researchers who are committed to advancing community health and well-being, equity and justice. Their approach is guided by a model and set of processes that involve community members and university researchers co-creating and co-investigating pressing social issues.
SSRI’s mission is to foster novel, interdisciplinary collaborations by investigators who aim to address critical human and social problems at the local, national and international levels and to translate and disseminate this knowledge into measurable outcomes for human behavior, health, and development.
View the gallery here.