Community Engagement Practices Research Articles

Reimagining Our Public Health Systems: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's National Commission to Transform Public Health Data Systems.

Reimagining Our Public Health Systems: The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's National Commission to Transform Public Health Data Systems.

“Who Is That Teacher I See, Staring Straight Back At Me?”: Teachers’ Reflections on Their Engagement in Communities of Practice and Learning Spaces During the Pandemic

When COVID-19 hits the world, education as a sphere of learning breaks through doorways to explore opportunities for how teachers engage in professional development communities. Exploring Parker Palmer’s The Courage To Teach, and the notion of undivided life, teachers’ reflective practices mirror the utmost goal of emergency remote teaching and their professional development, specifically in the Gulf region. To support this pedagogical approach highlighting the undivided life, teachers reflect through communities of practice (CoP) on how their engagement can help bridge the gap in enhancing the education system, professional development, and teaching in higher education. This paper investigates the practicality and usefulness of Palmer’s context of undivided life in uncovering teachers’ lives through understanding their “own” engagement in different CoP. Ultimately, the investigation espouses relevant findings relating to how teachers adapt to the changing needs of professional learning communities to cope with the demands of time through reflecting on their professional identities, collaborative practices, and the importance of community belongingness. The stories documented in this paper through the in-depth interview (IDI) hope to provide meaningful perspectives on guided principles of CoP as teachers engage, collaborate, and reflect on the divided–undivided lives during the pandemic. Perspectives and views that have impact on positive education are also considered in this study to support teachers in building deeper understanding of their own construct of resilience. Thus, adding more foci in transforming positive psychology in developing teachers’ professional development during the pandemic.

AMESH

Beginning in about 1990 and continuing into the present, an international network of researchers has developed and tested a methodology for integrating complex systems theories into sustainable development projects. Drawing on a theoretical understanding of complex systems and combining it with Checkland’s Soft Systems Methodology and best practices of community engagement drawn from a wide variety of sources, we have developed a methodology that is theoretically sound and practically effective. AMESH, an Adaptive Methodology for Ecosystem Sustainability and Health, has emerged from, and been tested in, Nepal, Kenya, Canada, and Peru.

The community voices program to facilitate community-academic researcher partnerships: Stakeholder perspectives on the program's usefulness.

The Institute of Translational Health Sciences (Clinical and Translational Science Awards Program hub) developed a program coined Community Voices to invite communities to submit project ideas and be matched with academic researchers. We describe formative research to understand community and academic researcher perspectives on how the program could facilitate collaborations addressing community priorities. We conducted four focus groups with 31 community-based organization (CBO) representatives and 11 semi-structured interviews with academic researchers in the Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho regions. Questions included the appeal of Community Voices to engage community and academic partners, potential program usefulness, and Community Voices' potential role in building community-academic partnerships. We used an inductive, constant comparison approach to code transcripts and thematic analysis to generate themes. Most CBO representatives were female (87.1%) and Hispanic/Latino (61.3%). Most academic researchers had a PhD (63.6%) and worked at a university (81.8%). The themes were: (1) community-academic partnerships built on trust will offer mutual benefit, (2) community-initiated project ideas should prioritize community needs, (3) matchmaking will accelerate connections but should not replace time to foster partnership, (4) Community Voices should go beyond matchmaking and provide ongoing support/training, and (5) fostering effective communication is key to partnership success. Community Voices is a novel, bidirectional community engagement program model that advances current practices of prioritizing researchers' project ideas. This community-driven program may shift the future direction of community engagement practices where prioritizing community's ideas becomes the norm of community-academic partnerships in clinical and translational science.

The impact of online brand community members, brand identification and community identification on participation: The moderating effects of frequency

The effect of online brand communities’ value creation practices on brand identification and community identification was examined using social identity theory as a theoretical background of this study. In examining their relationship, this study defined the practices that relate to the focal brand as both brand use and impression management whereas the practices that relate to the community were defined as both social networking and community engagement. The effects of the two identification constructs (brand and community identification) on participation and their impact on brand awareness were also tested. The effects of frequency as a moderating variable on the relationship between brand identification community identification and participation were also revealed. Structural equations modeling was used to analyze the data collected after an online survey was done. Among the value creation practices, this study revealed that the impression management practice had a significant effect on brand identification and the community engagement practice had a significant effect on community identification. Test results have also shown that community identification has a significant effect on participation. Frequency moderated the relationship between brand identification and participation. In the high frequency group, brand identification had a significant effect on participation whereas in the low frequency group, the effect was not significant.

Policing the pandemic in Australia and New Zealand: lessons for trust and legitimacy

PurposeThis paper aims to assess COVID-19 as presenting both a crisis and opportunity for police trust and legitimacy by considering the role of police in delivering the legislative requirements of government and enforcing various health orders across Australia and New Zealand.Design/methodology/approachThe research relies on a mixed-methods analysis of national, commonwealth, state and territory policy, corporate police reports, academic commentary and media coverage throughout the pandemic. Survey data gathered during the pandemic relevant to trust and legitimacy in police and government is also analysed.FindingsFive findings relating to police trust and legitimacy are identified. They reveal that police mostly did seize the pandemic as an opportunity to implement practices that enhanced perceptions of trust and legitimacy. However, even where police were able to leverage COVID-19 as an opportunity, the protracted nature of the pandemic posed a challenge for maintaining trust and legitimacy gains. The findings also underscore the importance of a continued focus on building trust and legitimacy post-pandemic to counter any lingering consequences.Research limitations/implicationsThe applicability of the findings outside the Australian and New Zealand context may be limited, given differences in jurisdictional legislative frameworks and policing operational environments.Practical implicationsThis study identifies good community engagement practice for pandemic policing, contributes to communication strategies for managing trust decay during an emergency, forecasts ongoing trust and legitimacy challenges to policing’s post-pandemic operational environment and enhances aspects of post-pandemic recruitment approaches.Originality/valueThe findings contribute to emerging police practice and research on building and sustaining trust and legitimacy during periods of uncertainty and volatility, such as during and after a pandemic.

Pandemic Policing and Community Engagement: Preparedness, Legitimacy and Public Support During the COVID-19 Crisis in Nigeria

This study brings to the fore, insights into three key factors that had been widely noted to play significant roles in driving effective pandemic policing. These are the preparedness of the police as first responders to a public health crisis, the level of public trust in the police as a legitimate power holder, and community engagement as a tool to drive public support and participation in fighting COVID-19. Using the Nigeria police as a case study, with the damning reports of abuse of power and other misconduct, this study examined how the police responded to COVID-19 mandates and community participation. Interviews with 40 police officers who enforced the COVID-19 lockdown, 16 senior police officers, and 18 community leaders within Lagos and Ogun states were conducted, and a thematic analysis of the narratives was carried out. Findings indicated that community engagement was not effectively deployed by the Nigerian police in the course of pandemic policing. This was due to a lack of police preparedness, over-reliance on the use of force for public control, public distrust in the police, and a lack of prior practice of community engagement by the police. Public distrust in the police was found to be central to peoples’ disobedience to COVID-19 rules which worsened police-community relations, culminating in protests against the police and its formations. These findings have important policy and practical implications if police legitimacy and post-COVID police-community relations are to improve.

Advancing the Science of Recruitment and Retention in Alzheimer’s disease Clinical Studies among Spanish‐speaking immigrant Latino/Hispanic communities

AbstractBackgroundWhile Latinos/Hispanics living with Alzheimer’s are projected to grow 832% by the year 2060, they make up approximately 7.5% of research participants across 32 federally funded Alzheimer’s Disease Research Centers. Our previous work presented at AAIC 2020 highlighted how the Human Connectome Project’s study design automatically excluded 94% of potential Latino/Hispanic community members in Southern California due to language. As a result, the individuals recruited and retained were mostly bilingual white Latinos/Hispanics with higher education and occupational attainment and high levels of research literacy, resembling the well‐known WEIRD sample (e.g., White, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic). In the current study, we sought to understand the role of Latino/Hispanic community stakeholders in involving community members more representative of Southern California (Spanish‐Speaking, low income, immigrants, Afro‐Latinx, Indigenous Natives).MethodDuring the COVID‐19 pandemic, we recruited 11 community stakeholders from Southern California to complete a 1‐hour semi‐structured interview via an HIPPA compliant zoom platform. All participants were involved in Latino healthy aging and Alzheimer’s Disease organizations. We conducted a preliminary reflexive thematic analysis from the interviews.ResultThe overarching theme surrounded the exclusion of Latinx/Hispanic community stakeholders from leadership conversations about Alzheimer’s disease clinical research priorities. The systematic exclusion of community stakeholders from leadership tables lead to non‐inclusive community engagement and research practices. They were solely used for outreach (“find me your people”), as well as for the translation of recruitment materials, and/or for the sole administration of poorly translated and non‐culturally adapted outcome measures. These practices lead to the exclusion of Spanish‐speaking, immigrant communities through language and cultural isolation, triggering negative cognitive schemas and negative beliefs from previous traumatic experiences of exclusionary practices in the United States.ConclusionOur findings highlight how the Alzheimer’s disease clinical research enterprise continues to propagate multi‐level systematic exclusionary practices, accounting for the lack of equitable representation of high‐risk Latinx/Hispanic communities in research. To advance the science of recruitment and retention, and brain health equity, we need to systematically employ transformative community engagement and inclusive science models where Latinx/Hispanic community stakeholders are essential in decision‐making research process with equal‐power and shared governance.

Community Engagement as an Ubuntu Transformative Undertaking for Higher Education Institutions

Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) stand at the junction of increasing social and economic challenges in a pandemic era. The focus of this study is to substantiate to an extent what CE implies and what HEIs can and should do. A probing question is whether HEIs can effectively respond to needs identified within the communities in which they operate? The purpose is to interrogate how CE by HEIs can shape and be shaped by its role-players. A qualitative literature study and an interpretivistic paradigm were utilised in this study to deliberate upon the debate on Community Engagement (CE) in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in South Africa. It is a global truth that a university has an important role to play in responding to a range of societal needs. In South African universities, this is also the case, but the notion and practice of community engagement by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in general, is a persistent transformational requirement. What is meant by the term Community Engagement (CE) may differ from institution to institution but broadly speaking it relates to how an institution interacts with a community in which it operates in ways that result in a win-win situation for all parties involved and positively influence the quality of life within society in general. Viewed from a South African Higher Education milieu, it is clear that CE is an instrument through which transformation is supported through social responsiveness and it is thus in essence far more than mere community service or outreach as in most universities abroad. Having CE engaged universities is vital for a strong social and economic South Africa. CEs role is then to promote skills and knowledge to those alienated during the apartheid era. For a higher education institution, the benefits accrued would most likely be in inter alia joint projects, research initiatives and teaching opportunities to help redress past evils. Although community engagement often brings with it a range of challenges, it remains a fundamental role required of HEIs in South Africa and beyond. This article thus presents a brief overview on inter-alia, the direction and theoretical development of CE practices and suggests some possible aspects to consider applying to CE. A desktop literature review methodology and an interpretivistic paradigm were used in this brief study. Keywords: community engagement, higher education, South Africa, transformation, ethical duty

Decoding community engagement in dance with systems thinking

ABSTRACT Private dance studios exist outside the scope of K-12 institutions in the United States and serve students within their local communities. Many of them strive to benefit underrepresented groups fthrough community engagement initiatives. This mixed-method study scrutinizes the various community engagement practices of private dance studios through a grounded theory approach to investigate the following research questions: 1) What are the different ways private studios engage with community engagement practices? 2) How are the concepts of ‘community’ and ‘engagement’ perceived and manifested within dance studio practices? 3) How do community contexts and external environments influence the management of community engagement practices of dance studios? By engaging systems thinking and existing literature on arts-based civic engagement, we propose a three-level community engagement conceptual framework for dance programs and studios to better understand their communities and apply systems thinking to leverage resources and constraints within and beyond programs and organizations.

A qualitative study of stakeholder and researcher perspectives of community engagement practices for HIV vaccine clinical trials in South Africa.

Community engagement increases community trust of research and improves trial participation. However, there is limited documented appraisal of community engagement practices. Several HIV vaccine efficacy trials have been conducted in South Africa, the country most affected by HIV, predominantly in collaboration with the HIV Vaccine Trials Network (HVTN). We explored stakeholder and researcher perspectives of the HVTN community engagement practices used in the Gauteng province of South Africa. In 2017, we conducted a qualitative study. Using semi-structured interview guides, we facilitated two group discussions with Community Advisory Board (CAB) members (n = 13), and 14 in-depth interviews with HVTN-affiliated employees (n = 8 in South Africa and n = 6 in the USA). Group discussions and in-depth interviews were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim, translated into English, and coded using NVIVO 12 Plus software for thematic data analysis. Overall, median age of study participants was 22 (interquartile range 32-54) years, and 74% (n = 20) were female. Three main themes about community engagement emerged: (i) community engagement as an ongoing iterative relationship between researchers and community; (ii) methods of community engagement, encompassing community education by linking with external stakeholders and through awareness campaigns by pamphlet distribution and mass events, working with communities to develop recruitment messages, and working with CAB as a link to communities; and (iii) strategies to improve community engagement, for example, using simple language, linking with religious leaders and traditional healers, and communicating via conventional (newspapers, television, and radio) and social (videos and listicles) media. Our data indicate ways for researchers to improve relationships with community by understanding local needs, strengthening collaborations, and tailoring communication strategies. In this regard, CABs signify critical linkages between researchers and communities. CABs can relay relevant health research needs, advise on the creation of suitable materials, and link researchers more effectively with community leaders and media.

Implementing participatory nature-based solutions in the Global South

This article delves into the participatory aspects of the implementation of nature-based solutions (NbS) in the Global South. It examines the practices of community engagement in several projects conducted in informal settlements and how they relate to project visions. Building on previous work on community engagement for urban upgrading projects, we examine the relationship between the methods used to engage communities and the goals that guide the design and implementation of NbS. In doing so, we explore engagement practices that can support the emergence of transformative approaches in historically disadvantaged areas. We discuss how the degree of participation offered by different methods, such as citizen science and serious games, can substantially influence the outcomes of NbS projects by making them more integrated and site-specific. We conclude by discussing how the transformative implementation of NbS entails a multi-stakeholder proactive approach that is capable of supporting changes in the socio-ecological systems.

Understanding ground‐up community development from a practice perspective

AbstractThis article offers a practice perspective on Community Development from the ground up regarding health and well‐being. It advocates for a departure from traditional Community Engagement approaches, arguing that they fall short of relocating authority to communities as influential health producers. The author affirms that Asset‐Based Community Development (ABCD) approaches are preferable Community Engagement practices, as they offer more authentic pathways toward community‐centred population health and wellbeing. The article concludes that once effective ground‐up community development has been initiated supplementary efforts at reform and relief are more likely to have desired and sustained impact.

Using Critical Race Theory to Analyse Community Engagement Practice in a Graduate Social Work Course

Post-secondary institutions are increasingly encouraging partnership engagement with the community; however, community engagement from an academic perspective does not necessarily benefit the community. This is partially due to the power differential in this relationship and the emphasis on students’ learning at the community’s expense. The content of this article is drawn from experiences gleaned from 11 students of the “Perspectives with Diverse Communities” (institute component) course at Memorial University, Canada. Of the group, eight identified as cisgender, heterosexual, white females. The professor—a Black woman—and two students deviated from this in terms of gender identity, sexual orientation, and race. During a week of on-campus education, the students participated in community engagement activities prompted by the 2017 United States ban on immigration and refugees. Through a Critical Race Theory (CRT) lens, the students acknowledged their own identities as mostly white cisgender women, given the institutional racism surrounding them. As graduate students, they are taught self-reflexive practice, but question whether this is enough to effectively work with Black, Indigenous, and racialised groups. During the course institute, they steered towards a course of action that was familiar to them instead of developing deeper levels of understanding in working with Black, Indigenous, and racialised populations. This article details one aspect and the process of community engagement undertaken by the class and provides a critical reflection on how the students could have better engaged the community and challenged power dynamics and epistemology while using CRT.

Universities Need a Social License to Operate and Grow: Reflecting on the University-Community Engagement of two Transnational Universities

Transnational higher education is big business. However, it is unclear what transnational universities must do to behave in a responsible way or to gain a social licence to operate. Examining the University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC) and Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU), we discuss what universities could do to gain approval from host communities. They have to meet home and host country regulations, and the expectations of local communities and other stakeholders. Consideration of their social licence and of the negative and positive social impacts they create will contribute to their reputation and ability to access local knowledge. To earn a social licence to operate and grow, universities must understand and respond to their local context, share benefits with local communities, and have effective community engagement practices. In the universities we studied, there was limited information provided to community stakeholders and poor stakeholder engagement. However, high levels of trust from residents existed, partly because of the good reputation of universities generally.

Augmenting Community Engagement in City 4.0: Considerations for Digital Agency in Urban Public Space

An engaged community that reflects a diverse set of experiences is key to an equitable and livable city. However, maximizing engagement activities is often difficult when competing with residents’ busy schedules and hectic daily lives. To explore new opportunities in this space, we developed four augmented reality experiences to learn more about the potential for this technology to transform community engagement practices in the context of City 4.0. City 4.0 utilizes digital technologies to transform public services and the local economy. Its goal is to produce more sustainable urban and societal outcomes. Our findings suggest that augmented reality is least successful when used to recreate existing engagement practices, such as surveys or questionnaires, and more successful when it empowers a sense of agency and ownership over the process in its users. The way augmented reality situates information can aid in making public space feel personal to the individual. In this way, augmented reality’s affordances are less about overlaying digital information in physical space and more about how this can enable individuals to reclaim a sense of control and relevance in the relationship between citizens and councils. We aim to contribute: (a) novel interaction paradigms and an evaluation of their effectiveness and limitation, and (b) new insights into how to support citizens’ sense of agency in public discourse with augmented reality. This paper highlights the value of augmented reality’s affordances to bring to light new interactions between community engagement stakeholders.

In-Service Teacher Reflections on Program Innovations towards Education Responsive to Local Communities

Innovation in teacher training encompasses additions to a program so as to serve the most recent skills required by stakeholders. Innovation requirements push the redesign of in-service teacher education program which has seen embedding of an internship aspect. Using the theory of partnering pedagogy, these innovations focus on provision of education that is relevant and responsive to the local communities around and beyond the school. The innovations engage principles of effective pedagogy to design activities that involve and promote local community engagement practices and learning experiences. Using educational design research, ten in-service teachers participated a program that was recently reviewed with some innovation brought aboard. This study is qualitative which explored in-service teachers’ reflections on having gone through a recently reviewed in service program with innovations on board. The in-service participated in a reflection on their lived experiences and impact on their pedagogic practice having gone through the reviewed program. The resultant qualitative data was subjected to content analysis. Findings indicate that program review innovations that bring local stakeholders aboard allow integration of competencies beneficial to in-service teachers, learners, and the local community in which the school is located. Innovation design that engages communities lead to pedagogic practices that emphasize learning by doing and not just transmission and accumulation of theoretical knowledge. Innovation in program design and review should therefore focus on activities that engage the in-service teacher, learners, and the local community. This leads to the design of innovations that focus on quality learning and development of contextually purposed skills for the local community. However, because of the collaborative attribute among stakeholders, there are challenges in the implementation of innovative suggestions. It is concluded that innovations in program design and review need to be contextually relevant because then, their impact extend to the local communities surrounding the school. In these ways, innovations provide avenues for schools to provide quality learning opportunities and skills to serve the local communities and beyond.

Reimagining Community Engagement Sustainability: Insights for the Postpandemic World

Scholars in the community engagement field have long discussed measures to sustain community engagement on campus. When COVID-19 emerged, however, university operations, including community-engaged teaching and research, had to pivot. The conversation was no longer about sustaining community engagement but about enduring the pandemic for the sake of students, faculty, and community. In order to inform a more durable community engagement strategy for the postpandemic world, we apply a sensemaking approach for the purpose of organizational learning. We collected quantitative data about 40 planned courses and surveyed 22 community-engaged faculty from April to August 2020 (spring–summer academic quarters). In the same period, we gathered qualitative data from 41 respondents comprising 28 faculty and 13 community partners. The quantitative analysis suggested that, overall, faculty maintained a positive outlook regarding the strategies they used to address the needs of students and community partners and regarding their own expectations and innovations. The qualitative data revealed seven themes—loss and challenge, future uncertainty, action strategies, communication strategies, technology, collaborative resilience, and student considerations—that can help us consider community engagement through the lenses of experience, adaptation, and sustainability. The insights provided here offer ways to improve durability within sustainable community engagement practices.

Using collaborative critical autoethnography to decolonise through “seeing” and doing: Social work, community engagement, and ethical practice

INTRODUCTION: This article reports on a collaborative critical autoethnographic study that we, two white settler social workers, conducted about our engagement with Inuit youth in Nunavut. APPROACH: We facilitated three digital storytelling projects with youth living in three different Nunavut communities. By engaging in a collaborative critical autoethnography study, we were able to attend to the ways in which we were entering into communities, paying particular attention to the ways in which white supremist colonial thought has impacted our training and our locations within larger structures—shaped by colonising histories with consequences that mould day-to-day life and opportunity for the Inuit youth engaged in the digital storytelling. FINDINGS: Through collaborative critical autoethnography, using individual research memos and guided dialogue, we considered the ways in which commodification was structured into our relationships, how these structures continue to be colonising, and consider the impact of the past and current colonisation. We also encountered the many strengths and resistances of the Inuit of Nunavut. IMPLICATIONS: By bringing these considerations to light, we hope to enter into relationships with Inuit communities with fewer of the biases and assumptions that underlay and rationalise the structures that we have critically examined.

A Theoretical Framework for Enhancing Open-Source Software Security

Cyber security is a rapidly developing field and open-source software (OSS) is being led by a collaborative community and a transparent nature. This research intends to make a theoretical framework highlighting the symbiosis of community engagement models, governance models, and the security of open-source ecosystems. The significant purposes aim to investigate how community engagement affects open source software development, analyze the deployment of the governance systems in widely used open source projects, and create the theoretical model that brings the cybersecurity processes in those practices. The literature survey covers existing research on open-source software development, community engagement, governance models, and cybersecurity practices within the OSS ecosystem. Through literature review the basic concepts are investigated using conceptual analysis to determine which principles and mechanisms the Community Model Engagement and Governance models operate, influencing the security of Open Source Software. Open-source project policy recommendations are the foundation for the security of communities where members fully contribute to better governance. This includes developing a fundamental conceptual analysis to lay out the framework's principles and operation (mechanisms). This contributes to the overall development of the theoretical framework. This research expects to develop a standardized theoretical framework that tackles the community engagement-governance models-security software link from new and insightful perspectives. Practical policy recommendations to protect OSS projects will be presented to solve the cybersecurity problem easily and immediately. This study aims to add to the academic and practical discussions that focus on human and organizational components' critical roles in securing open-source software. The discussion of theoretical aspects gives this platform a unique angle that fits well into the technical approach while improving the understanding of a legally open cybersecurity community