Research capacity building in diverse communities: The art of community engaged pedagogy

Background: Engaging communities in research involves recognizing the power imbalances that exist between academic investigators and community partners. Capacity-building training programs have emerged as a response to this power dynamic. The Tufts Clinical and Translational Science Institute, in cooperation with Harvard Catalyst, Boston University and two community partners, the Center for Community Health, Research and Services and the Immigrant Services Providers Group/Health created “Building Your Capacity” (BYC) an educational intervention designed to build community partner knowledge and skills to effectively engage in academic-community research partnerships. Methods: Formative research (interviews and a survey) was used to develop the curriculum for three different cohorts. A total of thirty community-based organizations participated in BYC. Results: The formative research was used to help develop and refine the curriculum and adapt it to different communities. Each curricular iteration, which was framed by institutional opportunities and constraints, led to different outcomes for each cohort of BYC. Results from each cohort were built upon in ways that helped to strengthen the program and better meet community needs. Conclusions: In illustrating these different approaches to capacity-building, this presentation demonstrates that developing training programs for community partners cannot take a one-size-fits-all approach and troubles whether one training model can adequately respond to local community needs.