What is Community-Based Research?

 

 

Community-Based Research (CBR) is a collaborative and mutually beneficial enterprise between academic researchers (professors and students) and community that has as its goal social action and social change for the purpose of achieving social justice. The community partner organization work with faculty in all stages of the research process, which typically lasts the course of a semester (about 4 months) and can involve a selected number of students or an entire class. 

 

CBR is an opportunity to build bridges between Washburn University and Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) that serve the greater Topeka community.  

 

Some examples of successful CBR partnerships between colleges and communities are:

 

• University of Denver students partnered with La Clinica to conduct a 6-month evaluation of the Reach and Teach Program, a program designed to familiarize women with La Clinica’s breast and cervical cancer screening services. The research team made recommendations for improvement, which were integrated into next year’s program and positive findings were used in grant proposals.

 

• Students at Princeton University partnered with the New Jersey Environmental Federation. Students studied reductions in pollution and other benefits from shutting down local generator incinerators. Students also researched current air emissions and recommended ways to increase composting, recycling and source reduction as alternatives to incineration.

 

• Students from the University of Louisville partnered with the local history society to conduct archival research with a focus on identifying individuals, buildings, and geographical sites of importance to the history of African Americans in the Louisville metropolitan area.

 

Who are the Partners?

 

 

(1) Community-Based Organizations:

 

 

Community-Based Organizations (CBOs) are nonprofit organizations, public agencies, or small grass-roots groups organized for any number of purposes, such as providing services to those in need, advocating for the disadvantaged or oppressed, empowering people who are disenfranchised, alter structures that limit opportunities and generate poverty, violence and suffering, and those that ally themselves with such efforts. Partner CBOs are generally located in close proximity to Washburn’s Campus/

 

 

(2) Learning in the Community (LinC­­­): The Center for Community Service and Civic Engagement

 

 

LinC is Washburn University’s center for community service and civic engagement. It involves more than 200 students each year in course and community based service projects.  LinC serves as a centralized hub for community service/service learning opportunities as well as a catalyst for new community service initiatives at the college.

 

(3) Faculty

 

Community based research is a cross-disciplinary approach to incorporating service learning and community service into the curriculum of courses irrespective of major. 

The following are but a few examples of disciplinary based Community Based Research initiatives:

 

Art-- Partner with local agencies to construct murals and other community-based art projects

 Criminal Justice-- Partner with local agencies to implement victim-offender mediation programs  

History-- Partner with local neighborhood groups to collect oral histories

Nursing-- Implement, with community partners, local health screenings

Sociology-- Work with local agencies to mediate community based social problems

 

 WHY PARTICIPATE IN COMMUNITY BASED RESEARCH?

 

 For Community-Based Organizations

 

CBOs confront enormous challenges as they labor on society’s most complex problems -- often with inadequate resources. Community agencies often need information as part of their efforts to make needed changes: improve their programs, attract new resources, understand their target populations, and contribute to a social agenda aimed at improving the lives of people in their community. Students provide new ideas, research skills, time and talent to produce research of benefit to the community.

  

For College Campus Faculty

 

Community-Based Research is an approach to learning that inspires faculty to develop creative and tangible research projects that offer students “real world” experiences that support course learning objectives and that provide direct benefit to the community.

 

 For College Students

 

 College students who participate in Community-Based Research have a rare opportunity to gain competencies in research design and practice, marketable skills, and an understanding of the nonprofit sector, while gaining a rare opportunity to engage with community members and contribute to the Topeka community.

 

PolicyOptions.org  http://policyoptions.pbworks.com/About-Us

 

Students will be working in teams addressing issues they are . Student interns wil be establishing meetings with the community partenr whose mission is related to the issue of each team and facilitating discussion through the wiki to get input to the teams from the partners.

The following issues are being addressed : 

  

Policy Options.org issue areas 

  

Health and Wellness - ALS services

Youth Violence - Bullying policy in schools

Civil Rights - Equal rights for alternative couples

Environment - recycling

Domestic Violence

Adult Education - access to higher education for non-traditional students

Crime amd Justice (pre-release policy)

Children's Literacy  - Social Skill literacy

 

Reading List  http://www.educasting.org/page/Selected_ReadingsCCL