Moving Toward Synergy: Lessons Learned in Developing and Sustaining Community-Academic Partnerships

Abstract

Few community-academic partnerships use a conscious and systematic approach to guide and evaluate their progress. We argue that this is an important first step in creating a partnership, sustaining a milieu of open dialogue, and developing strategies that promote trust and equalize power dynamics. Still, as we learned, the best laid plans can go awry, challenging partnership synergy throughout its lifespan.

The Developmental Stages of a Community–University Partnership: The Experience of Padres Informados/Jovenes Preparados

“…Though other frameworks have been used to explain stages of CBPR, 6,8,9 we chose Erikson’s model because we work with immigrant families with adolescents who experience transitions (as immigrants, parents, and adolescents) and so gravitated towards a conceptualization of partnership maturation as a human developmental rather than an organizational process. Over the course of multiple presentations to community and academic audiences we have found the metaphor of human development to be an accessible and useful means to describe partnership development.…”

“…1,2 The necessary ingredients for early development of strong partnerships are well described in the literature, 1,3–7 and a number of models describe stages of partnership development defined by partnership research activities; 6,8,9 however, less attention has been paid to the trajectory of research partnerships from a developmental perspective. Partnerships that are sustained over multiple studies must adapt to meet the changing requirements of projects.…”

Time, Dual Roles, and Departments of Public Health: Lessons Learned in CBPR by an AIDS Service Organization

“…6,[8][9][10] Community-based ASOs have participated in CBPR to inform 11,12 and promote HIV/AIDS prevention 13,14 with different populations, [15][16][17][18][19] including the development of a chatroom-based HIV prevention intervention for gay men 11 and a program involving outreach, service delivery and research with commercial sex workers. 15 As a community-based ASO …”

Knowledge to action: First nations engagement with research for community benefit.

“…Participatory research facilitates a collaborative relationship between researcher and participants and a mutual exchange of knowledge (Brush et al, 2011;Minore et al, 2004) and coleaming (Minkler, 2005). Through collaboration, partners do not just exchange resources; they combine individual perspectives, resources and skills to create something new and valuable (Minkler, 2005).…”

“…Lesser & Oscos-Sanchez (2007) state, that adopting a participatory approach can increase the accuracy, cultural relevance and effectiveness of the research results. Overall, participatory research is a methodology that helps to enable the research to remain culturally appropriate (Brush et al, 2011). …”