Community Partnership Project Research Articles

Shaping Emerging Community-Engaged Scholars’ Identities: A Genre Systems Analysis of Professionalization Documents that (De)Value Engaged Work

This article presents the findings from a small case study to examine how community-engaged research is systemically delegitimized over the course of a scholar’s career. Analyzing a genre system of university professionalization documents prior to tenure and promotion shows how such documents discourage emerging scholars from thinking of their community-engaged work as research, except when it results in traditional forms of scholarship like a publication or conference presentation. A more complicated understanding of this genre system reveals pressure points to leverage for institutional change that might allow community-engaged scholars greater institutional freedom to create and sustain strong community partnership projects.

Kulwap”: a trend of health promotion during the COVID-19 pandemic, Implementation of the STIKES Buleleng Community Partnership Project

The pandemic of COVID-19 has brought the global community into a new perspective of living. Due to the social distancing protocol, face to face meetings should be avoided. This could be a barrier in implementing the previous health promotion programs which were based on group gatherings. Hence, nowadays, the online approach has become a promising strategy. The intensive use of social media platforms in Indonesia serves as a great opportunity to penetrate the public awareness of society. The initiation of “Kulwap” (Kuliah WhatsApp or lecturing by WhatsApp), which is an approach to gather a group of people in a WhatsApp Group and deliver a lecture to this group through the application is also being implemented in STIKes Buleleng Bali. The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of WhatsApp as a media of health promotion. It is a part of the community partnership integrated into the educational process of nursing students. During the program, there were four major topics promoted: Non-Communicable Disease (NCD), Communicable Disease, and Wellness and Child Health Issues. This program succeeded in involving 357 participants who lived in Bali. Based on the participants’ feedback, the engagement was successful due to the use of WhatsApp as the preferred social media platform (84.3%), the beneficial contents being shared during the Kulwap (65.5%), the attractiveness of media being used in the lecture (82.8%) and the way of delivery was easy to be understood (70.3%). Almost all (98.6%) of the participants expressed their willingness to rejoin the program. Therefore, the study concluded that the use of Kulwap serves is an effective and acceptable strategy to establish a health promotion initiative during the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Community digitization through regional partnerships

Lack of funding, equipment, and expertise tops the list of reasons standing in the way of many smaller cultural heritage organizations digitizing their archival collections. Expanding on existing relationships with regional public libraries and museums, a pilot project was developed to address these reasons, partnering a university library's experience and expertise with a small institution's need to digitize their unique "hidden" collections. This article presents a case study of a university library's grant-funded pilot project to explore the feasibility of creating sustainable regional digitization services and hosted digital collections for public libraries and cultural heritage institutions. It also considers how community partnership projects are especially susceptible to the effects of external events, such as a pandemic.

Centering Community-Led Indigenous Gender Sovereignty

Kinship Rising is an Indigenous community partnership project that offers urgently needed action research led by Indigenous youth and communities impacted by colonial histories of gendered and sexualized violence. Working with hundreds of Indigenous youth, practitioners, Elders, and knowledge keepers across diverse rural and urban Indigenous communities in western Canada, our project engages land- and arts-based practices, intergenerational mentoring, and community leadership to recenter Indigenous knowledges of gender and sexual wellbeing and sovereignty.

الشــــراکة المجتمـــــعیة کمدخل لتحسیــــن جودة الخدمات الاجتماعیة

- ملخص : هدفت الدراسة إلى تحديد دور الشراکة المجتمعية في تحسين جودة الخدمات الاجتماعية من خلال: تحديد دور الشراکة المجتمعية فى إتاحة الخدمات الاجتماعية ، تحقيق کفاية الخدمات الاجتماعية ، تحقيق عدالة توزيع الخدمات الاجتماعية ، استدامة الخدمات الاجتماعية ، کذلک تحديد المعوقات التي تواجه الشراکة المجتمعية في تحسين جودة الخدمات الاجتماعية ، التوصل لتصور مقترح لتفعيل دور الشراکة المجتمعية في تحسين جودة الخدمات الاجتماعية، ولتحقيق أهداف الدراسة فقد أعتمدت على استمارة قياس کأداة رئيسية قام باعدادها الباحث من خلال الاطلاع على الدراسات السابقة، واستشارة ذوي الخبرة ، وتتکون الأداة من (42) عبارة اضافة للبيانات الأولية موزعة کالتالى : البيانات الأولية (6) أسئلة ، دور الشراکة المجتمعية فى إتاحة الخدمات الاجتماعية (7) عبارات ، تحقيق کفاية الخدمات الاجتماعية (7) عبارات ، تحقيق عدالة توزيع الخدمات الاجتماعية (7) عبارات ، استدامة الخدمات الاجتماعية(7) عبارات ، المعوقات التي تواجه الشراکة المجتمعية (7) عبارات ، التوصل لتصور مقترح لتفعيل دور الشراکة المجتمعية في تحسين جودة الخدمات الاجتماعية (7) عبارات ، وتم التأکد من صدقها وثباتها وقد طبقت ميدانيا على عينة بلغت (138) مفردة موزعة على مشروعات الشراکة المجتمعية بمحافظة الفيوم ، وتوصلت الدراسة إلى عدة نتائج وهي: أن للشراکة المجتمعية دور هام في تحقيق إتاحة الخدمات الاجتماعية عن طريق: توفير تلک الخدمات ، التعريف بها ، مقابلتها للاحتياجات الأساسية، کما أن دورها في تحقيق کفاية الخدمات الاجتماعية تمثل في: تقديم الخدمات بمستوى جيد ، تسهيل اجراءات الحصول عليها، الاستفادة منها في تحسين الدخل ، التنويع، أما دورها في تحقيق عدالة توزيع الخدمات الاجتماعية فقد تمثل في: المعاملة الحسنة ، الحصول على الخدمة بدون تفرقة، توفير الخدمة للمحتاج إليها، وأما عن دورها في استدامة الخدمات الاجتماعية فقد شمل: الحصول على الخدمة باستمرار، تناسب الخدمات مع الاحتياجات ، البحث عن خدمات جديدة، أما عن المعوقات التي تواجه الشراکة المجتمعية في تحسين جودة الخدمات الاجتماعية فقد تمثل أهمها في: عدم تطوير المشروعات،عدم تناسب الخدمات مع الاحتياجات ، ترکز الخدمات على فئة واحدة، أما عن مقترحات تفعيل دور الشراکة المجتمعية فقد تمثلت في: تطوير الخدمات، الدراسة المستمرة للاحتياجات، ايجاد خدمات جديدة ، الاهتمام بمشروعات تحسين الدخل، تبسيط اجراءات الحصول على الخدمات. - الکلمات المفتاحية: الشــــراکة المجتمـــــعية ، الجودة ، الخدمات الاجتماعية. The study aimed to determine the role of community partnership in improving the quality of social services through: determining the role of community partnership in providing social services, achieving adequacy of social services, achieving fair distribution of social services, sustainability of social services, as well as identifying the obstacles facing community partnership in improving the quality of Social services, to reach a proposed vision to activate the role of community partnership in improving the quality of social services. To achieve the objectives of the study, it relied on a measurement form as a main tool prepared by the researcher by reviewing previous studies and consulting with experts. The tool consists of (42) phrases in addition to the primary data distributed as follows: primary data (6) questions, the role of community partnership in providing social services (7) phrases, achieving the adequacy of social services (7) phrases, achieving fair distribution of social services (7) phrases ,Sustainability of social services (7) Phrases, Obstacles facing community partnership (7) Phrases, reaching a proposed vision to activate the role of community partnership in improving the quality of social services (7) Phrases. Its validity and reliability were confirmed, and it was field-applied to a sample of (138) items distributed among community partnership projects in Fayoum Governorate. The study reached several results, which are: The community partnership has an important role in achieving the availability of social services by: providing these services, introducing them, and meeting the basic needs. Its role in achieving the adequacy of social services is represented in: providing services at a good level, facilitating the procedures for obtaining them, benefiting from them in improving income, diversifying. Its role in achieving fair distribution of social services has been: good treatment, free access to service, and service to those in need. As for its role in the sustainability of social services, it included: access to service continuously, tailored to needs, search for new services. As for the obstacles facing community partnership in improving the quality of social services, the most important of which are: lack of project development, disproportionate services to needs, services focus on one category. The proposals to activate the role of community partnership were: service development, continuous needs study, new services, interest in income improvement projects, and streamlined access to services. Keywords: community partnership, quality , social services.

Global English and Social Injustice: The Need to Listen

Examples of a new climate in community partnership projects, where a priority is given to listening, provide a perspective for studies of language and social injustice. We need to spend more time listening to how global learners, especially in the most disadvantaged communities, actually describe their needs. A utilitarian view of English soon emerges. It is difficult to generalize about causes and solutions because of the diversity of situations, but a useful perspective is provided by the notion of empowerment, illustrated from the situation of those who teach English as a Foreign Language. The current state of Welsh illustrates some practical ways of taking forward the relationship between linguistic and economic factors, which should not be seen as being in contrast or in competition, but as forces operating in synergy.

Leading by Example: Corporate Social Responsibility Initiatives by Dabur India Limited in North India

The purpose of this study is to explore the corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives undertaken by Dabur India Limited, the biggest Ayurvedic company in the world, at areas close to its manufacturing plant. It also explores the perception of Dabur’s stakeholders with respect to its social responsibility behaviour. For the purpose of this study, both primary as well as secondary data have been used. The primary data have been collected by conducting unstructured interviews and a field visit within the premises of the company’s manufacturing plant in Baddi district as well as in the surrounding villages. The secondary data have been collected from annual reports of the company and the company website. On investigating, it was be observed that Dabur, through years of social involvement and local community partnership projects, has established a special bond of trust with all its stakeholders. Also, as the expenditure made by Dabur on its CSR activities has always exceeded the stipulated amount as per government recommendations, this evidently supports its dedication towards its vision statement, on creating value for society. As after a revision in CSR policies there have not been many research studies examining the CSR practices by companies in India, this study, therefore, addresses this knowledge gap and provides new insights on the compliance by Dabur with regard to new CSR guidelines by the Companies Act, 2013.

Project Design: Building Foundations for Transformative Learning

ABSTRACTResearchers analyzed data from 14 participants in a collaborative, interarts, intergenerational community partnership project entitled An Evening with Harvey Dunn’s Feminine Images, to understand the effects of the project design on participant learning. The year-long project included collaboration among faculty and students from six disciplines at South Dakota State University (SDSU) in Brookings, South Dakota, using four paintings by artist Harvey Dunn as its inspiration. In addition, partnerships with the South Dakota Art Museum and a local dance studio provided community engagement with diverse age groups. The project created an environment in which an interarts and intergenerational cohort of learners explored diverse learning opportunities within a new context. Rich description from participant experience helped researchers understand how the project’s structural framework was perceived by participants, what the participants learned, and how that learning aligned within Chad Hoggan’s (2016) metatheory of transformative learning.

Aging & community health: a university–community partnership project

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this paper is to discuss how university–community partnerships can be utilized to provide affordable and accessible health care for the elderly at community health clinics. A review of community health clinics, usage data from 2013 to 2014 by a sample of aging individuals will be described along with faculty perspectives about the usefulness of the university partnership and suggestions for improving future partnerships. Recommendations for future university–community partnerships are discussed.

Community Digital Storytelling for Collective Intelligence: towards a Storytelling Cycle of Trust

Digital storytelling has become a popular method for curating community, organisational, and individual narratives. Since its beginnings over 20 years ago, projects have sprung up across the globe, where authentic voice is found in the narration of lived experiences. Contributing to a Collective Intelligence for the Common Good, the authors of this paper ask how shared stories can bring impetus to community groups to help identify what they seek to change, and how digital storytelling can be effectively implemented in community partnership projects to enable authentic voices to be carried to other stakeholders in society. The Community Digital Storytelling (CDST) method is introduced as a means for addressing community-of-place issues. There are five stages to this method: preparation, story telling, story digitisation, digital story sense-making, and digital story sharing. Additionally, a Storytelling Cycle of Trust framework is proposed. We identify four trust dimensions as being imperative foundations in implementing community digital media interventions for the common good: legitimacy, authenticity, synergy, and commons. This framework is concerned with increasing the impact that everyday stories can have on society; it is an engine driving prolonged storytelling. From this perspective, we consider the ability to scale up the scope and benefit of stories in civic contexts. To illustrate this framework, we use experiences from the CDST workshop in northern Britain and compare this with a social innovation project in the southern Netherlands.

An assessment of the integrated nutrition programme for malnourished children aged six months to five years at primary healthcare facilities in Mangaung, Free State, South Africa

AbstractBackground: According to the World Health Organization (WHO), malnutrition can be linked to 45% of deaths in children under the age of five years. The Integrated Nutrition Programme (INP) was introduced in 1994 to address malnutrition in South Africa. There had been no systematic evaluation of how well clinics perform regarding nutritional services. Malnutrition rates worsened in the Free State from 3.9% in 2009 to 10.7% in 2013. This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of the INP Supplementary Feeding Programme in primary healthcare facilities in the Mangaung University of the Free State Community Partnership Project, known as MUCPP, catchment area of Bloemfontein, Free State, in children aged six months to five years.Methods: This was a retrospective, descriptive cohort study. All children between six months and five years entering the feeding scheme between July 2014 and June 2015 at the MUCPP, which is the hub of the feeding scheme, and three primary healthcare clinics were included. Data ...

An assessment of the integrated nutrition programme for malnourished children aged six months to five years at primary healthcare facilities in Mangaung, Free State, South Africa

Background: According to the World Health Organization (WHO), malnutrition can be linked to 45% of deaths in children under the age of five years. The Integrated Nutrition Programme (INP) was introduced in 1994 to address malnutrition in South Africa. There had been no systematic evaluation of how well clinics perform regarding nutritional services. Malnutrition rates worsened in the Free State from 3.9% in 2009 to 10.7% in 2013. This study aimed to assess the effectiveness of the INP Supplementary Feeding Programme in primary healthcare facilities in the Mangaung University of the Free State Community Partnership Project, known as MUCPP, catchment area of Bloemfontein, Free State, in children aged six months to five years.
 
 Methods: This was a retrospective, descriptive cohort study. All children between six months and five years entering the feeding scheme between July 2014 and June 2015 at the MUCPP, which is the hub of the feeding scheme, and three primary healthcare clinics were included. Data were collected from September to November 2015 from the INP registers and captured on dataextraction forms.
 
 Results: In total, 730 children were included in the study, 38.8% at risk for malnutrition and 61.2% malnourished. Most of the children (80.7%) stopped attending before change was seen. Only 14.1% exited the INP successfully with a normal weight for age and 3.0% deteriorated despite nutrition interventions. Of all children with one or more follow-up visits, 50.4% (119/236) improved from severe malnutrition to underweight or exited at target weight.
 
 Conclusions: The follow-up of the children and the monitoring and implementation of the INP are inadequate. There is some evidence that children who attend the INP regularly benefit from the programme.
 
 (Full text of the research articles are available online at www.medpharm.tandfonline.com/ojfp)
 
 S Afr Fam Pract 2017; DOI: 10.1080/20786190.2017.1340252

Sinners Welcome: The Limits of Rhetorical Agency

“Sinners Welcome” explores the relationship between current community partnership models and the political rhetoric that often surrounds them. Taking up the frequent invocation of Cornel West’s “prophetic pragmatism” in such partnerships, this article investigates what it might mean to understand this term as a call to work for actual systemic justice for those most oppressed by the current political moment. To make this concrete, the article discusses a community partnership project that resulted in an activist organization being created by local residents in response to a large-scale redevelopment effort in the neighborhood. Once created, this organization became the site of a concerted countereffort to defund and discredit such partnership work. It is this tension between community partnerships and activism, between prophetic pragmatism’s theoretical goals and its actual practice, that represents a fundamental choice within English studies. Ultimately, the article poses the question of how far our field is willing to go in the name of a “transformative politics.”

The prevalence and perception of obesity and its association with the lifestyle of women at the Mangaung University Community Partnership Project healthcare centre, Bloemfontein

AbstractBackground: This investigation was prompted by the increase of obesity in developing countries with the simultaneous increased risk of preventable noncommunicable diseases. We aimed to determine the prevalence of obesity among women serving a predominantly black peri-urban community, who visited a healthcare centre in Bloemfontein. We also wanted to establish their perceived weight status, and any correlation between obesity, level of education, employment status and monthly income.Method: A cross-sectional analytical design was used. In June 2007, clinic-attending women aged 18–50 years were selected by a systematic sampling method to participate in the study. A self-administered questionnaire investigated participants' socio-economic status, body image perception, psychological well-being, self-reported health status and physical activity. Body mass indices (BMIs) were calculated from weight and height measurements.Results: A total of 304 women completed the study, of whom 98 (32.2%) were overwe...

Engaging Youth in Food Environments Research: The Role of Participation

Minority youth in the United States experience higher rates of diet-related health disparities than their white, non-Latino counterparts. The field of community food security seeks to employ holistic constructs to better understand the social and environmental factors that impact diet-related health. Some perspectives greatly advocate the inclusion of youth in constructing problems and solutions; however, it is unclear what level or form of participatory learning and practice is necessary in community food security and food environments initiatives. This article describes a university–community partnership project that included youth as members in what we refer to as a food environments community of practice. Drawing from theories on sociocultural learning and typologies of participation we explore how our approach enabled and constrained ideal youth participation, as well as the food environments and community food security discourses and practices the youth find most relevant.

Organization and staffing barriers to parent involvement in teen pregnancy prevention programs: challenges for community partnerships

Purpose To evaluate parent involvement in a Southern California teen pregnancy prevention community partnership project. Researchers expected to find parent and family-related participation barriers similar to those described in the family support literature, which they could address with program modifications. Methods Three phases of qualitative evaluation occurred: key informant interviews and focus groups with youth and parents; focus groups with service providers; and key informant interviews with service providers, their supervisor, and the collaborative coordinator. Theory-based, open-ended question guides directed the interviews and focus groups, and transcriptions were coded and themed using grounded theory methods. Results Parents and youth sought ways to improve connections and communication with each other, and parents welcomed parenting education from the project. Unexpectedly, the major obstacles to parent participation identified in this project were largely organizational, and included the assignment of parent involvement tasks to agencies lacking capacities to work effectively with parents, inadequate administrative support for staff, and the absence of an effective system for communicating concerns and resolving conflicts among collaborative partners. Conclusions Youth serving agencies may not be the best partners to implement effective parent involvement or family support interventions. Collaborative leadership must identify appropriate partners, engender their cooperation, and support their staff to further the overall goals of the collaborative.

Community outreach as an iterative dialogue among scientists and communities in the Texas gulf coast region.

In response to significant environmental health challenges in Southeast Texas, a National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences Center at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston was created to promote and conduct inter-disciplinary research in the areas of: (1) the molecular biology of DNA repair, replication and mutagenesis, (2) asthma pathogenesis in response to oxidative stress and viral exposures, and (3) environmental toxicant biotransformation. In addition, the NIEHS Center maintains close ties with neighboring communities through an active Community Outreach & Education Program (COEP) that develops and disseminates translational materials for use in environmental health awareness outreach, toxicology consultation, K-12 curriculum enrichment and in developing site-specific Community Partnership projects. The COEP core service divisions include: Environmental Arts & Sciences, Asthma Outreach & Education, Theater Outreach & Education, and Public Forum & Toxics Assistance. Public Forums focus on the use of Augusto Boal's Forum Theater dramaturgy to include the voices and local knowledge of communities within the process of Participatory Research. Forums create the preconditions for significant partnerships that link the hazardous risk perceptions and environmental health needs of communities with the expertise of NIEHS Center investigators and translational services provided through COEP outreach programs. The Forum process also creates leadership cores within environmentally challenged communities that facilitate the ongoing translational process and maintain the vital linkage between the health needs of communities and the analytic tools and the field and clinical technologies of the environmental sciences.

Changes in substance use patterns associated with the development of a community partnership project

This study examined changes in substance use patterns across a county region in which a Center for Substance Abuse Prevention Community Partnership Project was carried out. The partnership project involved the creation of grass roots committees organized to influence local policy and to advocate for increased prevention and intervention programs for youths. The California Drug Use Survey was administered at the initiation (1991) and the conclusion (1995) of the project to seventh, ninth, and eleventh graders throughout the county area. Results showed that county youths reported lower alcohol use rates in 1995 than in 1991, a specific target of the partnership project. Use of marijuana and inhalants increased. These results are examined with respect to the youths' involvement in substance abuse prevention activities. It is suggested that substance use prevention programs need to be carefully matched to the needs of various groups of youths to have maximum effectiveness.