Lessons learned from community participatory research with communities serving immigrant and ethnic minority population on youth violence prevention

The UC, Berkeley Academic Center of Excellence (ACE) on Youth Violence Prevention was funded through the Center of Culture, Immigration and Youth Violence Prevention in 2005. This ACE, in partnership with the National Council on Crime and Delinquency (NCCD), the UC San Francisco, and the East Bay Asian Youth Center (EBAYC) is using community based participatory research to conduct a longitudinal evaluation study of the Roosevelt Village Center in Oakland California. RVC serves about 400 immigrant and ethnic minority, providing an array of after-school and youth development programs. Currently, this evaluation involves EBAYC and other ethnic minority serving organizations in Oakland in the conceptualization of the study hypotheses, identification and development of the various items for survey/questionnaire, development of protocol for data collection, and participant recruitment. Lessons learned from this collaborative endeavor thus far include: creating an environment for open dialogue and communication, creating a balance of incorporating community concerns/suggestions while maintaining scientific rigor and integrity, providing training and technical assistance in research methodology, ensuring that community partners are involved through frequent contacts and systematic communication protocol, and seeking to enhance collaborative efforts through other opportunities. For instance, NCCD was recently awarded a grant to enhance the community-building capacity of EBAYC as well as the Japanese Community Youth Council in areas of leadership, program development/grant writing, evaluation, and information dissemination. As such, community participatory research includes engaging with community partners, understanding the challenges of community partners, and working to strengthen their efforts and capacities, thereby achieving integration among the organizations.