Participatory Action Project Research Articles

Validation of a Scale to Measure Digital Competence in the Elderly Population

The aim of this work arises, on the one hand, from the need to digitally include people over 65 so that they can participate fully in today's society, and, on the other hand, to involve university students in their own training process through a research and participatory action project with older people. A process of adaptation and validation of an instrument to measure the level of digital competence of older people was carried out by means of an expert judgement, a pilot test and a final application to a sample of 210 older people. The 16 items of the instrument show stable and consistent measurements, fulfilling the required demands, and could be very useful for researchers working with this group, as it will allow them to know the starting point of the elderly at a digital level and design strategies that favour their technological inclusion.

Clashing Gender in the Age of Transnational Infrastructural Capitalism: The Vocational Education and Subject Making of China's Future Workers

Accompanying the “China Dream” as a symbol of the advent of Chinese transnational infrastructural capitalism, a new project of subject making is emerging: an increasing number of Chinese youth, especially those from working-class backgrounds, have entered the expanded urban vocational education system for training as future workers. As a national project attempting to (re)invent educated, skilled labor subjects to serve the state goal of industrial upgrading, vocational education is geared toward entrance into the labor market, producing valuable “marketable subjects” specifically for the enhancement of the export manufacturing sector and a new service sector now increasingly extending to overseas markets. Engaging in a participatory action project in vocational schools between 2016 and 2019, this article’s authors studied students’ learning experiences and examined how the larger structural, political, economic, and cultural forces shape the girls’ and boys’ educational and occupational decisions. To understand the subject making of young Chinese workers, the concept of “clashing gender” is used to illustrate how gender plays a central yet conflicted role, torn between forces of state, market, school, and individual desire, during these young people’s years of vocational training. The article thus illustrates how the postsocialist state’s linking of China’s new economic sectors into the circuits of transnational capitalism produces intimately gendered and subjective effects for working-class youth.

The merging of knowledge and teaching about poverty through a participatory action project

ABSTRACT It is known among social work educators that training students about human rights is not only a mandate of the profession’s governing bodies but a desirable goal. While the notion of giving voice to the marginalized is not new to social work and is assumed to be a critical element of social justice, it is not always clear how best to manifest this in pedagogy and practice. This article introduces a training model that incorporates human rights and social work values and ethics. Based on participatory action research by ATD Fourth World, an anti-poverty organization, this training is led by people with lived experience of poverty and of child protection services in the UK. As lay experts and co-creators of knowledge, they guide students to a deeper understanding of the multiple dimensions of poverty and the impact of social work on their lives. This training challenges the power differentials typically embedded in client-clinician relations and focuses on the values underlying social work. This article explores the content and process of the training and implications for the development of human rights education in social work.

Household Sustainability Labour and the Gendering of Responsibility for Low Waste Living

This article explores the nature of domestic labour involved in sustainability transitions at the household level, with waste reduction as an exemplar. We draw on national survey data (N = 2717) from Australia, and qualitative data from a participatory action project working with 34 householders on experiments in low waste living. We found low waste living was challenging work mentally, physically and interpersonally and required information, skills and the resources of time and money. Waste reduction in households also required relational labour inside and outside the household. On the basis of existing literature and our findings we theorise that sustainability labour is comprised of five overlapping elements: physical, cognitive, relational, economic and political tasks. We argue that reducing waste is an example of sustainability labour that is led largely by women, as they work to change household practices and the systems in which these are embedded, towards a more sustainable future.

Reconfiguring Farming Systems of Smallholders with Market-Led Approach: A Case Study in Northeast Thailand

Agricultural research and development organizations are under pressure to shift from increasing productivity of crops to increasing the profitability and competitiveness of smallholders and linking small-scale farmers to profitable markets. This paper discusses the efforts to assist small-scale farmers to become more sustainable and market oriented. Data were taken from a 5-year participatory action project in a village in Northeast Thailand during 2014–2018. We found that a market-led extension approach can enable farmers to optimize their returns from farming by selecting farm enterprises based on market opportunities for both existing and new products. Farmers need to apply post-harvesting management, including processing, grading, standardization of produce, value adding, packaging, branding, and certification in the process. Collaboration and long-term commitments on the part of scientists, local stakeholders, policymakers, and funding organizations need to be furthered strengthened.

Impacts of a participatory action project: how reducing crop raiding has implications for health

ABSTRACT Human-wildlife interactions include wild animals foraging on agricultural crops, often called crop raiding. Crop raiding can result in disease transmission, poor nutrition, stress, and loss of income. Crop raiding also affects conservation because retaliatory events can result in wildlife being harmed. Around Kibale National Park, Uganda, a community action project implemented mitigation strategies that reduced crop raiding. We surveyed 95 of 106 (90%) project participant households to determine if participants perceived their health to have changed due to the project. We conducted open-ended, oral surveys during July and August 2018. Most participants said their overall health had improved (80%) and that their diet (83%), stress (82%), sleep (82%), and exposure to zoonotic diseases (64%) improved. Other benefits included income to pay medical bills and school fees. No participant reported negative effects. We found evidence that reducing crop raiding had positive implications for people’s health and income stability.

Digital Storytelling And Visual Representations: Refugees Disrupt Stereotypical Narratives

This community-engaged participatory action project aims to disrupt stereotypes about refugees by defying existing power dynamics through the use of photographic expressions paired with socio-cultural and political narratives. Refugee participants and a team of researchers co-created a series of unexpected digital narratives that centered individual refugees as the main visual storytellers in their inner city West Hill neighborhood in Albany, New York. The project created space to question commonly held beliefs that deny agency and/or voice to resettled refugees. The participants produced human-centered digital story fragments that incorporated words of resistance, defiance and clarification. This collaboration contributes to a more complex understanding of the dynamics that shape social cohesion in diverse neighborhoods, including in areas with high concentrations of resettled refugees.

Cultural adaptation of an appropriate tool for mental health among Kanien'kehá:ka: a participatory action project based on the Growth and Empowerment Measure.

We present a cultural adaptation of the Growth and Empowerment Measure (GEM) from the Kanien'kehá:ka people of Quebec (Canada). Our aim was to develop a culturally competent and safe tool to assess and promote well-being among this population. We followed a qualitative, collaborative, and participatory method that sought to benefit Indigenous participants and communities, while honouring their culture and philosophies. Twelve adults from health and community services of Kahnawà:ke participated in total five focus group meetings. We carried out a thematic analysis of the data collected through an advisory group that led a revision of the cultural and conceptual relevance of the tool and its content. The group integrated socio-culturally relevant elements and restructured the tool so that it reflected local well-being factors and showed its versatility of being an assessment tool and therapeutic support. A narrative and empowerement-driven approach, culturally based intervention, cultural safety and flexibility when using the instrument were considered successful strategies to improve wellness. This project provides valuable information about the perspectives of local Indigenous communities regarding mental health and factors of empowerment. Mutual understanding and integration of psychological and traditional knowledge can create a beneficial program to improve emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical well-being for the local population. It remains to be tested whether the Kanien'kehá:ka Growth and Empowerment Measure (K-GEM) is clinically useful in psychological and psychiatric intervention, and social and community services.

From Applied Research to Participatory Action, Part II: Y Ahora, ¿que? Community Dialogues and Rediscovering Our Communities

Abstract In this article, we relay our collaboration as part of a community-based, participatory action project involving Spanish-speaking community leaders, an anthropologist, and university students in San José, California. Building from earlier collaborations to support community-based leadership, we employed focus group methods in a collaborative project to facilitate community dialogues to identify salient issues for community and leader attention. By recognizing community members as agents (rather than targets) of change and interventions, we wanted to respect and reinforce local adaptive and creative capacities. We therefore endeavored to support participants as they activated their social networks and organizational ties to initiate dialogues and build actionable agendas.

Evaluating food hubs: Reporting on a participatory action project

Food hubs create a range of economic, social, and environmental impacts through a wide variety of activities and programs. Evaluation of these impacts is important; however, many hubs lack the capacity (including time, resources, knowledge, and expertise) to do effective, ongoing evaluation work. This lack of capacity is exacerbated by the difficul¬ties inherent in capturing the kinds of complex, multidimensional, context-specific impacts and outcomes that many of these businesses and organizations strive to achieve. This paper reports on a participatory research project designed to develop a resource to support food hub evaluation efforts. It presents highlights from the guide that was created and discusses associated insights regarding the tensions and opportunities of food hub evaluation. We argue that food hubs need to be engaging in evaluation efforts, even in the face of significant resource constraints, as a means of strengthening individual entities and the sector as a whole. These efforts must be carefully aligned with a hub’s stage of development and context-specific, multifunctional goals. They should also account for food hubs’ emergent, dynamic, and adaptive nature. To that end, participatory evaluation methodologies that take a flexible, collaborative, action-oriented approach are especially relevant.

Living-dwelling | the importance of half-private spaces in the neighborhoods on the city borderline

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to present the participatory action project, in an attempt to redefine the aprioristic approach, which does not bring significant results for the local community regarding the sustainable concept as an estimative goal. The purpose of introducing the process management (PM) as a technique was to incorporate the collaboration between academic research with ongoing activities of local authorities, and furthermore to preserve living and dwelling patterns to make them sustain within the neighborhood in time.Design/methodology/approachPM is a method of approaching planning that can be used in complex, unpredictable situations common in the field of development and social change. The method allows stakeholders to pursue different goals or activities within a common project. Under such circumstances, the planning process must respond to many interests as a key aspect of the public interest of a particular community. This concept helps planners by anticipating the precise events and activities to satisfy the larger goals and processes.FindingsThis study sets out with the aim to establish sustainability definition in this case study, i.e. based on the notion of the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, the management of the project described in these participatory activities has attempted to resolve the complexity of stakeholder positions in the contemporary community. Emphasizing the social content, general and specific objectives of the project interact and evolve during this process of implementation of sustainable methodology and become the subject to negotiations and compromises, which change during the process.Research limitations/implicationsThe survey could help to get the needed information to create correlated activity diagrams. They represent the actual and the proposed situation in the neighborhood regarding social interaction between the dwellers and their interlock of interests on different scales. These are highly mutable components that depend on a certain period. The hypothesis regarding certain research problem could give significant statistical differences, but depend on relevant survey questions.Practical implicationsA common topic is established – the importance of half-private spaces. The students have learned how to create and use analytical tools in the process of creating a program that has social significance for the inhabitants. In terms of the study curriculum, the students benefit from this project as a part of their education process. Local authorities and dwellers also become aware of the significance of particular social values regarding property value and land use assessment.Social implicationsSocial sustainability becomes a project where the planning process must respond to many interests as a key aspect of public interest where municipal sustainability requires self-assessment, to reinforce the connection between citizens and local authorities as their real representatives.Originality/valueThe hypothesis regarding social behavior gave significant differences when the following aspects were statistically analyzed: time-sharing between household members, the importance of house yard preferences, barrier properties between households and negotiation boundary between neighbors (space compromise). Urban Facility Management (UFM) is seen as the primary factor in creating an urban ecosystem, which has people and the environment as the main driving forces.

Increasing the Depth of Field: Critical Race Theory and Photovoice as Counter Storytelling Praxis

Thru the Lenz was a youth participatory action project in which a group of urban high school students explored their lives and communities through art, photography, and narrative. Drawing on data from Thru the Lenz, I deploy CRT to reimagine the research space as a place for counter storytelling. Majoritarian stories are stories that invoke and perpetuate white privilege, are based on racist ideology, are pervasive and are told by whites as well as people of color (Solorzano and Yosso in Qual Inq 8:23–44, 2002a). Counter stories are a method and a tool that enable a deeper understanding of the stories the youth co-constructed though their photos and narratives and also challenge the majoritarian stories told about them, their school, and community (Solorzano and Yosso in Qual Inq 8:23–44, 2002a). Specifically, I present the research praxis organized in the form of an emerging counter story based on two key themes: good community and successful school. When constructed using a CRT framework, the students’ stories about their educational experiences provide a strong critique of neoliberal education reform. I conclude with a discussion of the tensions and challenges of engaging in counter story as critical, emancipatory praxis that elucidates the linkages of personal experiences and macro policies (Stovall in Race Ethn Educ 9:243–259, 2006).

Improving the therapeutic relationship in inpatient psychiatric care: Assessment of the therapeutic alliance and empathy after implementing evidence-based practices resulting from participatory action research.

To examine how evidence about the therapeutic alliance gleaned from participatory action project affected the level of this alliance and the degree of empathy of psychiatric nurses. Quasi-experimental study in two psychiatric units. In one group, evidence-based practices that affected the therapeutic alliance were implemented; in the comparison group, there was no such intervention. The nurses from the intervention group improved their degree of empathy and factors such as agreement on objectives and tasks with the patient. The results confirm the possibility of measuring and improving the therapeutic relationship in psychiatric care.

Participant or zombie? Exploring the limits of the participatory politics framework through a failed youth participatory action project

ABSTRACTThis article explores how “real life” stories of heroic participation might conform to, or challenge, hero myths. It involved engaging students of an urban high school in critiquing the hero myths of popular culture while also inviting them to tell and retell their own stories of participatory politics. The students' activities were followed over a period of an academic year as they worked through different ways of thinking about stories of heroic action and also created their own messages, reflecting their views, to motivate others to engage in action. Over that period, the stories they told deepened and developed. Ultimately, the political action in which the students chose to engage was frustrated, which provided an opportunity to explore the limits of the participatory politics framework.

Implementation of Mental Health Huddles on Dementia Care Units.

Client-responsive behaviours occur commonly among residents in long-term care (LTC) settings; direct-care staff, however, receive little education, support, or opportunities to discuss and collaborate on managing such behaviours. Our participatory action project introduced mental health huddles to support staff in discussing and managing client-responsive behaviours in long-term care. This research project engaged direct-care staff (e.g., personal support workers, registered practical nurses, housekeeping staff, and registered nurses) in learning how to use these huddles. Staff workers used huddles as a forum to stay informed, review work, problem solve, and develop person-centered action plans. Fifty-six huddles occurred over a 12-week period; two to seven direct-care staff participated in each huddle. Focus groups indicated improved staff collaboration, teamwork, support, and communication when discussing specific responsive behaviours. Huddles provided LTC staff with the opportunity to collaborate and discuss strategies to optimize resident care. Further research on how huddles affect resident care outcomes is needed.

Integrating the Transitional Relationship Model into Clinical Practice

The challenge of facilitating knowledge translation in clinical practice includes enabling practitioners and agencies to implement a common set of best practices, such as the Transitional Relationship Model (TRM). In 1992, a participatory action project implemented the TRM on a long-term psychiatric hospital ward in Ontario, Canada. All participants were successfully "bridged" to the community. Despite positive outcomes associated with the TRM, implementation of any best practice is difficult because it involves changing processes. It was hypothesized that using multiple implementation strategies developed by wards that had already implemented the model would result in improved TRM implementation. This study compared three groups of hospital wards; Group A wards had already adopted the TRM, Group B wards implemented the TRM in Year 1, and Group C wards implemented the TRM in Year 2. An iterative process was used in which strategies suggested by the A wards were used to enhance implementation on the B and C wards, respectively. These included enhancing staff participation, creating/maintaining supportive ward milieus, meeting specific educational needs, and supporting managers throughout the implementation process. The degree of actual implementation on each ward served as the primary outcome measure. Group C implemented the TRM model significantly quicker than the other groups. Sustainability in the initial A wards required the implementation of additional strategies used by the later wards.

China earthquake relief: Participatory action work with children

This article presents a community-focused participatory action project designed to promote children’s resilience in the early aftermath of the cataclysmic May 2008 Earthquake in Beichuan, China. Thirty children aged 7- to 15-years-old participated in the project. The project encompassed four phases that evolved from adult-directed/ initiated activities to activities that maximized children’s participation. The children were allowed to set their own pace in dealing with their feelings of trauma and loss. Initially, their activities focused on school, family, pets, nature and, finally, the earthquake. Ultimately, the children’s activities evolved into helping to rebuild their school and community. The project ended on the three-month anniversary of the earthquake with a memorial march initiated by the children to honor their deceased family members and friends. This article links participatory action projects to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies’ models of psychosocial disaster recovery efforts, and argues that participatory projects provide qualitative data to evaluate their efficacy. The article proposes that school psychologists, because of their diverse training in mental health services, consultation, and research, are especially suited to using these kinds of projects to train community members, e.g. teachers and community elders, to implement them. The American Psychological Association and other humanitarian relief organizations have articulated this goal of increasing capacity in the communities of developing countries as an essential component of international disaster recovery efforts.

Participatory Action Project in Reducing Childhood Obesity in Thai Primary Schools

The project aimed to improve nutrition and activity among primary schoolchildren via targeted activities. A preliminary nutritional survey was carried out involving 5126 children in 4 Bangkok public schools. Participatory action research involving students, teachers, and parents was conducted. After a 2-day training course, teachers integrated project concepts into their course curriculum. Seminars on weight management were given separately to parents and students. After 8 months, postnutritional survey was conducted. Preprogram and postprogram evaluation of obese and normal groups was done using questionnaires on dietary intake and exercise. showed that high caloric dietary intake significantly decreased for the obese group (P < .001). Aerobic exercise activity also increased in both groups (P < .001) and prevalence of obesity declined from 19.3% to 16.8%. Thus, a long-term, participatory effort to promote healthy diets and physical exercise could be effective with primary school students and may establish habits that last to later life.

Learning from a Community Action Plan to Promote Safe Sexual Practices

The well-being of a community is only as good as the well-being of the individuals who reside in the community. A group ofcitizens, concerned about the welfare of their community, recognized the high rates of HIV/AIDS and teenage pregnancy in their south Florida county and decided to take action. Supported by community leaders and using available resources within the county, this HIV/AIDS committee began a community-based participatory action project. Following a phone survey of over 1,000 residents, the committee determined that county residents were ready for change as well. Committee members developed and distributed a DVD to educate county residents about the importance of HIV testing and prevention. To reach the youths of their county, the committee members worked to change the high school curriculum to include more comprehensive sex education for students. The purpose of this article is to describe a community-based participatory action project to decrease the spread of HIV/AIDS and to discuss important lessons learned in the process.

Leadership for Ethical Policy and Practice (LEPP): Participatory Action Project

Within Canada's fast-paced, ever-changing healthcare environment, providers are experiencing difficulty practising according to their professional ethical standards, leading many to experience moral or ethical distress. Limited attention has been paid to improvements in the ethical climate in healthcare settings in research focusing on nurses' workplaces. In this three-year study, we focused on how the ethical climate in healthcare delivery can be improved and how the use of participatory action research methods can lead to continued enhancements and lasting changes in services delivery. Together, we developed strategies for taking action, aimed at improving the quality of the work environment. This action involved both nurses in direct care and those in key leadership positions (CNOs or their equivalents). Through the active participation of those for whom the research-based change was intended, these strategies were tested in various sites across British Columbia and can be used as templates or designs for use in other settings. A key component of the success of the projects and action plans that were created was the integral involvement of nurse leaders through all phases.