Empowerment, Leadership, and Sustainability in a Faith-Based Partnership to Improve Health

Abstract

Community-based participatory research is a noted approach for improving community health and reducing health disparities. Community partnerships can serve as a catalyst for change in public health efforts. This article will apply empowerment theory and sustainability principles to an existing faith-based partnership. BRANCH Out is a partnership among 13 African American churches, the City of Milwaukee Health Department-Community Nutrition, and the Medical College of Wisconsin. The partnership goal was to change inaccurate perceptions, knowledge and negative attitudes, and behaviors about chronic disease and promote healthy youth leadership. Faith-based empowerment can occur at the individual, organizational, and community level. BRANCH Out demonstrates how partnerships can be sustained in multiple ways. The partnership also highlights the unique contributions of churches to community health outcomes.

After 10 Years: A Vision Forward for Progress in Community Health Partnerships

“…Numerous factors impact the formation and maintenance of CBPR partnerships, and a considerable literature exists on these topics. 10,[43][44][45][46] Respondents, however, identified continued needs for advancing sustainability in practice as a priority.…”

“…Partnerships often struggle to maintain their existence as a result of funding pressures that dictate the partner's progress, and this may jeopardize the partnership as a result of unequal determination of direction. 46,47 In addition to increased focus of sustainability related to funding, respondents also identified the need to better understand how sustainable partnerships, and not just partnerships developed for specific projects (often grant specific) impact long-term efforts to improve health outcomes.…”

A Socially Just Leadership Approach to Community-Partnered Research for Reducing Health Disparities

“…This is likely because the CHG model does not specifically address how partners sustain their partnerships, or how they obtain the funding and other resources needed to achieve the major goals of the partnerships, such as the goal of improving the health of the community. According to Young et al (2015), sustainable partnerships include sustained relationships, commitments, knowledge, capacity, values, funding, and programs. Such partnerships are needed to reduce health disparities given that the social determinants of health underlying these disparities are intractable and thus require sustained efforts to effectively address them.…”

“…Both the partnerships and their leadership structures must be sustainable. This sustainability is achieved through meaningful involvement, ownership of solutions and outcomes, strong group dynamics and relationships, trust among all members of the partnership, and acquisition of resources to support the partnership (Lasker & Weiss, 2003; Young, Patterson, Wolff, Greer, & Wynne., 2015). Positive group dynamics and strong relationships are fostered through use of the aforementioned democratic features of a social justice leadership approach.…”

Personal Outcomes in Community‐based Participatory Research Partnerships: A Cross‐site Mixed Methods Study

“…Unfortunately, the literature around personal outcomes in CBPR partnerships is nascent. Most studies do not explicitly mention or define personal outcomes, but use empowerment terminology to refer to individual capacity changes (Young, Patterson, Wolff, Greer, & Wynne, 2014). Perhaps the closest literature is that related to youth empowerment and participation through photovoice (Catalani & Minkler, 2010; Gill, Black, Dumont, & Fleming, 2016).…”