University-community Collaboration Research Articles

University-Community Collaboration for a Sustainable School-Based Program for the Holistic Education and Wellness of Adolescents

Adolescents have been particularly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and the closure of schools that are already struggling to carry out their mission of quality education and holistic well-being of students. Research suggests that community-collaborative schools are improving students’ academic engagement and reducing learning barriers. When communities and universities are involved in holistic education, it benefits all the stakeholders by enhancing mutual learning and strengthening both. Community members’ involvement for student development encourages students and their families to be more involved in community-service initiatives. The paper reports DREAMS, a multi-stakeholder partnership (schools, universities and communities) after-school mentoring model’s sustainability. The study identifies and delineates how the model has incorporated the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) calling for Good Health and Well-being (SDG-3), Quality Education (SDG-4), Sustainable Cities and Communities (SDG-11) through Partnerships to Achieve its Goals (SDG-17) and proposes it as a sustainable after-school plan for the post COVID scenario

Transforming Researchers, Transforming Food Systems: The FLEdGE Network of Networks

Networked, intersectoral research partnerships represent one form of university-community collaboration that can respond to and take advantage of the complex and pluralist nature of food systems. Importantly, such partnerships can bring about transformation in many ways: within on-the-ground practice, to scholarly models, and among the perspectives, sense of connectedness, and credibility of individual researchers. This article shares insights on ways in which medium-to-large–scale research partnerships can optimize their transformational potential, specifically through attention to change at the scale of the individual participant. I draw on a set of semi-structured, qualitative interviews with participants in the Food: Locally Embedded, Globally Engaged (FLEdGE) research network, a seven-year, international partnership that brought together over 50 partner organizations and nearly 200 individual participants. Four thematic categories of effects are depicted: active change (to specific individuals and research contexts); latent change (towards future interactions and insights); distribution of leadership (across multiple sites and people); and potential challenges (that may impede or accelerate desired outcomes). Following J.K. Gibson-Graham’s proposal for deploying “thick description and weak theory” (2014), I draw on a number of elements of network theory to help surface insights about individual transformation. Together, they contribute to the growing discourse around network structure, interactivity, and performativity, as well as modes of supporting longer-term food systems transformation.

Australian Remote Education Tutors and Universities: Proposed Innovative Partnerships for Credentialling Adult Supervisors of School Students Enrolled in Distance Education

Currently, an almost exclusively female workforce provides the government mandated adult supervision of Australian primary and secondary school students enrolled in distance education, including geographically isolated learners. These Remote Education Tutors (RETs) include unpaid family support providers and externally employed governesses and home tutors who are paid by the children's families. This crucial position has no prerequisite qualifications, which in turn generates occupational invisibility and an absence of recognised career pathways for the individuals fulfilling the responsibilities of this role. In response, we propose innovative partnerships for credentialling the experiences and effectiveness of Australian RETs, in order to recognise their professional status and to contribute to a sustainable rural education workforce. Such credentialling will entail dynamic and mutually responsive collaborations among the distance education stakeholders, including the tutors, the children's families and the universities charged with administering such credentialling. Evidence to support this proposal is provided by selected data from a 2021 national survey completed by 575 current and former RETs in most Australian States and Territories. These data underwent descriptive analysis that elicited four themes that encapsulated key elements of the RETs' lives and contexts: career pathways, economic disadvantage, gender roles, and educational equity. This account framed by Cardini' s (2006) politicised conceptualisation of partnerships highlights both the urgency and the complexity of envisaging and enacting situationally responsive rural communityuniversity collaborations to support this vital yet invisible segment of the Australian educational workforce.

Creating Population of Interaction and Connection through the Type of Inter-local Community-University Collaboration under COVID-19 Crisis:

Creating Population of Interaction and Connection through the Type of Inter-local Community-University Collaboration under COVID-19 Crisis:

Enabling evidence-led collaborative systems-change efforts: an adaptation of the collective impact approach

Abstract This article conveys the results of a three-year ethnographic study of a pan-Canadian community–university collaboration to prevent and end youth homelessness. The collaboration adapted aspects of a collective impact (CI) approach to pursue a large-scale shift in how youth homelessness is addressed in Canada. The objective of this article is to codify and share the model developed and implemented by the community–university collaboration as an opportunity for ongoing adaptation and learning among others undertaking similarly complex and collaborative systems-change efforts. Findings suggest a CI approach is unlikely to be suitable for large-scale innovation-oriented initiatives, and that context-specific adaptations of the model should be encouraged. To what is already known about collaborative multisectoral partnerships, this article reveals the importance of strategic information sharing, targeted and flexible research and knowledge mobilization efforts, and ongoing attentiveness to the relational dimensions of collaborative evidence-informed systems-change efforts.

The Pathway of University-Community Collaboration for Preventing Youth Violence

University-community collaboration has grown in popularity due to mutual benefits-university has an opportunity to attempt evidence-based programs while community resolves its emerging needs and problems. However, collaboration is a complex and challenging process because coalitions bring two different organizations and personnel to work together. Using the BRAVE youth violence prevention program as a case study, this study describes the pathway of developing university-community collaborative youth violence prevention program in poor and disadvantaged urban communities. In addition, this study explores significant facilitators and barriers that influence the collaboration process from its initiation to completion. Identified facilitators are agreed mutual benefits, trust relationship, mutual respect, shared power in decision-making, flexibility, and cultural competence while barriers are higher staff turnover, scarce agency space for program, and lack of adequate funding. Building on the lessons from this experience, this study provides core factors enhancing effective university-community collaboration.

How do students offer value to organisations through work integrated learning? A qualitative study using Social Exchange Theory.

Learning through work is a common feature of preparing health professionals for practice. Current understandings of work-integrated learning or a 'work-based placement', focus on students being consumers of experiences rather than providing a reciprocal benefit to the organisation in which they are placed. More nuanced understanding of the ways that students can offer value to organisations may provide new opportunities and increased capacity for workplace learning. This study drew on Social Exchange Theory to explore the perceived value and benefits of work-integrated learning experiences to the organisations in which students are placed. The focus was on population health placements undertaken by dietetics students at a large Australian university. An interpretive approach was employed with interviews with placement educators and document analysis of student-generated products from their placement. Seventeen of 20 eligible placement educators were interviewed, with interview data coded using thematic framework analysis. These data were supported with document analysis of student scientific posters completed as part of assessment to develop themes which were interpreted with social exchange theory. Three themes were identified: (1) students add to the organisation's capacity, (2) benefits outweigh time cost of planning and supervising and (3) explicitly valuing students for their contributions may build trust and further potentiate bi-directional benefits. Results suggest that student placements can add value to organisations. This reciprocity of benefits should be communicated to all stakeholders involved in the university-community collaboration, including students. Social exchange theory sensitised researchers to nuanced findings that may support the translation of these study findings to other student work-integrated learning settings.

Participatory evaluation of community-university collaboration programs: a case study of Noto, Japan

ABSTRACT This paper reports on a case study of a participatory evaluation of community-university collaboration in the Noto region of Japan, comprising capacity development and research programs. By modifying the Most Significant Change (MSC) technique, we designed our own methods using the “Horizontal MSC” technique to address the lack of a mechanism to collect and share the views of those engaged in the program implementation. The study found the Horizontal MSC useful in participatory evaluation, which itself can serve as a learning process for key actors to share future goals and has the potential to enhance overall cycles of planning, implementing, and evaluating programs.

Lessons Learned from Designing Curriculum and Fostering University-Community Collaborations to Implement a Lay Patient Advocate Training in Tribal Communities

Health literacy is critical to enable individuals the capacity to obtain, process, and understand information to make informed health decisions, advocate for themselves and family members, and to activate collaboration in sharing responsibility for health decisions and perform self-management behaviors to help improve their quality of life. This is a particular challenge in disadvantaged groups such as the American Indian (AI) population. The purpose of this Community Based Participatory Research study was to foster university-community collaborations to develop a health literacy/self-advocacy training curriculum for laypersons in AI communities and deliver the training curriculum via classroom integration in community adult education programs. The target population for this program was adult learners in AI tribal communities across South Dakota. A committee consisting of representatives from the community and health science content experts from the university developed a four-module curriculum. The curriculum was modified following feedback from the local adult educators who, following training, then implemented the curriculum into their programs. Results suggest our heuristic health education approach to promote positive health behaviors among the AI population may be viable. By utilizing adult education specialists to deliver the curriculum to adults with educational barriers, we combined the content expertise of university health science professionals with the specialized expertise of community-based adult educators to provide the education to AI students in a familiar environment.

Play Captains on Play Streets: A Community-University Playful Learning and Teen Leadership Collaboration

Playful Learning Landscapes (PLL) merges playful learning pedagogy with community spaces to create playful learning opportunities for children, families, and communities. Prior PLL projects have demonstrated effectiveness in enhancing social interaction between children and caregivers by creating opportunities for social interaction derived from the learning sciences literature. In the present case study, a university-based team of PLL researchers partnered with a local community-based organization (CBO) that provides educational, skill building, and job training opportunities for teens in low-income neighborhoods. PLL provided consultation and training to transform the CBO’s Play Captains program into a Playful Learning program where local teenagers led playful learning activities for children on city streets (Play Streets) that were closed to vehicular traffic by Philadelphia’s Parks and Rec department. The teen Play Captains also conducted research observations of children on streets and completed surveys that assessed their own personal growth as a result of their experiences as Play Captains. Results suggest considerable social interaction and use of learning language among children on the Play Streets where Play Captains ran playful learning activities and significant increases in Play Captains’ self-confidence and understanding the benefits of playful learning. We discuss key lessons learned that can help to inform future university-community playful learning collaborations.

Using PAR to frame sustainable transport and social justice on policy agendas. A pilot experience in two contrasting Chilean cities

If sustainable transport is defined by emissions and energy, urban passenger transport in Chile could be considered “sustainable”, with two-thirds of trips made by walking, cycling or public transit. Recent studies, however, reveal that gender and equity issues are highly problematic, pointing to tensions between environmental and social sustainability.Given these tensions, a university-community collaboration, the Laboratory for Social Change, developed a pilot methodology to define and evaluate Transport Justice. We sought a relatively simple instrument, a Transport Justice report (Balance de Transporte Justo, BTJ) that could combine experiential and academic knowledge and thereby influence policy and decision-making more effectively.We used a participatory action research (PAR) approach to bring together community leaders and university researchers, and consider experiential and research data, through this “transport justice” lens. To start, we introduced the idea of “transport justice” with researchers in different disciplines and citizen organizations involved in relatively specific battles: fighting a highway, for better cycling facilities, or for reduced road speeds, for example.We focused on established issues, such as universal access, walkability, cycle-inclusion, but added children's freedom and autonomy, the wise city (older adults, heritage, identity), care and land use, and transport impacts on ecological services. Building on this collaboration, we also applied a transport justice survey in two contrasting Chilean cities, Santiago and Temuco.Our analysis reveals that, despite a planning system that favours high-income households whose members rely mainly on cars, the majority of pedestrians, cyclists, public transit and even car users would prefer a redistribution of road space and investment in favour of active transport. During the next phase of research (2020–2021), we will test how well these results are taken up by citizen organizations, politicians and senior government staff from all parties. This will allow us to evaluate its effectiveness as a policy and power distributing instrument.

Using Action Research to Design a Nonformal Learning Environment for the Elderly: Focus on Community–University Collaboration

Using Action Research to Design a Nonformal Learning Environment for the Elderly: Focus on Community–University Collaboration

The University of Gondar, Queen’s University and Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program: A partnership for disability-inclusive higher education in Ethiopia

This article describes the development and implementation process of an innovative 10-year partnership that draws on the strengths of existing community-based rehabilitation programs to support new education and leadership development activities in Ethiopia. Current global estimates indicate that over 17 million people may be affected by disability in Ethiopia. The national population projection for 2017 indicates that approximately 80 per cent of the population resides in underserved rural areas, with limited to no access to necessary health, rehabilitation, or social services. The University of Gondar (UoG) in Ethiopia has been serving people with disabilities in and around the North Gondar Zone since its inception in the mid-1950s. Over the years, its various units have designed and implemented numerous projects, employing alternative institutional and community-based models to promote the wellbeing of people with disabilities. Lessons drawn from these initiatives and shifts in health and social work practice informed UoG’s decision to establish its Community-Based Rehabilitation (CBR) program in 2005.
 Given a shared commitment to the principles and practice of CBR, the UoG is presently collaborating with the International Centre for the Advancement of Community Based Rehabilitation (ICACBR) at Queen’s University in Canada to create new disability-related education and mentorship opportunities. These include community-based research and internship opportunities for undergraduate and graduate scholars through a shared Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program. The two institutions, in collaboration with the Mastercard Foundation, have an overall goal of creating a disability-inclusive campus and regional rehabilitation hub at UoG.
 In this article, the authors discuss the unique collaborative structure of project management and implementation, and the embeddedness of university-community engagement to meet project objectives informed by the North–South/South–North partnership models. They also provide critical insights to, and reflections on, the challenges inherent in international, interdisciplinary university-community collaboration and the benefits from enhancing higher education in both Ethiopia and Canada. In contrast to shorter term or smaller projects that rely heavily on individual champions, this article focuses on larger scale, process-oriented institutional learning.

Community Partners’ Perspectives and the Faculty Role in Community-Based Learning

Background: Benefits of community-based learning for students in higher education are well documented. Comparatively less is known about the community partner experience. Purpose: The community partner perspective is explored to (a) confirm and expand recent findings regarding community partners’ perceptions of the benefits and challenges of working with colleges and universities and (b) present community partners’ views on how faculty can help improve community–university collaborations. Methodology/Approach: Dual-rater axial and open coding qualitative analysis methods were used to identify key themes in community partners’ responses in an on-line survey. Participants ( n = 201) represented community partners from a broad range of fields, regions, and partnership types (e.g., volunteer, internship, service-learning). Findings/Conclusions: Although community partners identify a number of benefits to their collaborations with academic institutions, they also encounter critical challenges (e.g., faculty engagement, communication, student preparation). Partner recommendations include additional faculty attention to student knowledge of content, skills, and professionalism, as well as increased faculty engagement in all aspects of the collaboration. Implications: From a community perspective, faculty have an important role to play in facilitating true community–university partnerships that are equitable, reciprocal, and mutually beneficial.

Review of Innovation and implementation in rural places: School—university—community collaboration in education

Review of Innovation and implementation in rural places: School—university—community collaboration in education

Integrated care workforce development: university-community collaboration

ABSTRACTBehavioral health workforce shortages to provide quality care services for children, adolescents, and transitional age youth are well established. This paper highlights the workforce shortage and the need to infuse interprofessional education to engage in integrated care for children, adolescents and transitional age youth with behavioral health needs. A specialized training curriculum to build behavioral health workforce in Nevada was conceptualized and delivered through 10 workshops under the auspices of the Health Resources & Services Administration (HRSA) funded Behavioral Health Workforce Education and Training (BHWET) grant funded in 2014. To train existing workforce and in alignment with the spirit of the grant to build behavioral health workforce and existing workforce, workshops were extended to social service providers in the community. In an effort to enhance university-community collaboration, workshop presenters were invited from various units in the University and from social service agencies in the community. Implications of such training are addressed from a policy, practice, research, and university-community collaboration perspective.

Making a positive impact in rural places: Change agency in the context of school–university–community collaboration in education

Making a positive impact in rural places: Change agency in the context of school–university–community collaboration in education

University-Community Collaboration with Education as the Key and Contribution to Community-based Integrated Care Systems

University-Community Collaboration with Education as the Key and Contribution to Community-based Integrated Care Systems

Service and Learning at a Residential Parenting Program for Incarcerated Mothers: Speech-Language Pathology Student Outcomes and Maternal Perspectives.

Purpose This article reports preliminary outcomes from a service-learning (SL) experience for graduate students in the Speech-Language Pathology program with incarcerated mothers who reside with their infants at a residential parenting program. We present an ecological model to serve as a framework for interpreting the impact of the experience on student learning and maternal perceptions. Method Graduate speech-language pathology students (total n = 30) participated in an SL project, called the Partnership for Healthy Parenting. With faculty guidance, students implemented parent education and child development workshops designed to foster secure attachment relationships, enhance the quality of mother-child interactions, and promote communication and language development. Students completed self-report scales measuring civic attitudes and self-efficacy before participating; they also provided written reflections about their experience that were analyzed qualitatively. Mothers completed voluntary feedback surveys after each workshop. Results Student reflections revealed a variety of perceived positive learning outcomes related to personal attitudes and beliefs about their role as a clinician, family-centered practices in early intervention, and knowledge about the population of interest. Feedback surveys administered to mothers who attended the workshops indicated satisfaction relating to the value of the services provided. Conclusions SL programs may benefit students, faculty, communities, higher education institutions, and the relationships among all these stakeholders. Results, limitations, and implications for strengthening university-community collaborations in the field of communication disorders are discussed.

University-Community Partnerships: A Local Planning Co-Production Study on Calabarzon, Philippines

University-community partnerships provide opportunities for collaborations and meaningful engagement with community partners, in order to promote sustainable community development. To date, studies on university-community partnerships have largely neglected partnership potential and readiness prior to partnership formation. These factors enable expectations and targets to be negotiated and potential problems to be anticipated, prior to any formal collaboration. Hence, this study investigates the optimal preconditions—including environment, resources, and motivation—to facilitate successful university-community collaboration for local urban planning. Specifically, a sample of local government units (LGUs) and universities in the Calabarzon region of the Philippines were interviewed and observed to determine their needs and access to planning resources at universities, as well as factors that would ensure sustained partnerships. The results show that there is a need for university-community partnerships in local planning, since LGUs have limited technical capacity in preparing comprehensive land use plans, particularly with respect to data analysis, technical writing, project development, and hazard mapping. Conversely, LGUs have more financial resources than universities. Local universities were determined to be uniquely suited to meet the technical and human resource needs of LGUs. Importantly, though, previous partnership experience was found to dramatically influence both parties’ decisions regarding whether or not to pursue a partnership. Accordingly, there is a need to temper the desires and expectations of partner organizations, and lay down the foundations of sustainable university-community partnership prior to partnership formation. Toward this end, policies that bolster partnership institutionalization, funding, and systematic monitoring and evaluation systems can enhance the utility of such partnerships moving forward.