Peter Park, Human Rights Activist

What does someone do after being forcibly institutionalized for 18 years because they were labelled as having an intellectual disability? In the case of Peter Park, he chose to become an advocate for other people with disabilities to make sure this inhumane treatment wouldn’t happen to anyone else. Peter co-founded the  nearly forty years ago and helped to close Ontario’s last institution for people with developmental disabilities. Peter continues his work today advocating for the rights of people with intellectual disabilities.

Recently, Peter was part of a community-campus partnership to create a training video focused on making research more accessible.

I sat down with Peter Park to pick his brain on the term “research”, his new training video, and some tips on how to make research more accessible to individuals with intellectual disabilities.

Research is a dirty word in some circles

When asked how academics can make their research more inclusive, Peter replied, “Number one is figuring out how to phrase it so it’s not framed in the word research.” Peter added that “research is sort of a dirty word”.

Because people with disabilities have frequently found themselves as research subjects as opposed to research participants and collaborators, the term “research” can be seen as exclusionary. It’s challenging to think of a term that might replace “research” (Peter and I tried), but at the very least, it is important for researchers to know that the term may come with negative connotations for individuals with disabilities.

Of course, just because the word carries a negative connotation, that doesn’t mean that academics and people with disabilities shouldn’t team up to explore ways to make a positive impact on the lives of their peers.

For Peter, working in equitable partnerships with academics and community has been part of his advocacy work. Specifically, Peter has worked for years with Sue Hutton, Respecting Rights Coordinator with the ARCH Disability Law Centre, and together they co-founded a project called: , which provides innovative, accessible rights education to persons labelled with intellectual disabilities and their support networks. Sue and Peter have also published several articles about self-advocacy in the disability community (see a recent example of their ).

Nothing about us without us! And that includes research!

Sue Hutton, Respecting Rights Coordinator at the ARCH Disability Law Centre

Recently, Peter worked with Sue to deliver a keynote speech at the in April 2018. The theme of conference was “Research that Includes: Toward more inclusive approaches with persons with Developmental Disabilities.” For this conference, Peter and Sue designed a keynote speech titled “Nothing about us without us! And that includes research!” This speech was structured as a conversation between Peter and Sue with the purpose of “looking back and looking forward” at inclusive practices for research with people with developmental disabilities.

As part of this presentation, Anna Przednowek, a past CFICE Research Assistant (now an Assistant Professor of Social Work at Nipissing University), teamed up with Peter and Sue to create a training video based on Peter’s keynote address. The purpose was to create a video that could be publicly available and accessible to self-advocates, disability activists, students and professors teaching courses in research methods, Developmental Services Worker programs, and Schools of Social Work and Disability Studies who are committed to centering the voices of people with lived experiences and working toward promotion of inclusive research practices, social justice and human rights.

When asked about working on the video, Peter brought up the fact that it was a little scary for him at first. He didn’t know quite what to expect from the process. However, he did mention the importance of being approached right from the start of the project. This allowed for an inclusive and respectful team environment.

Encouraging inclusion in research with people with disabilities

While the training video is still in the works, Peter had a few ideas for how academics can make their research more accessible in the meantime. The first is to create content with a different point of view in mind — thinking about how one’s research will be received and understood by individuals with intellectual disabilities can be a great starting point. Writing articles or other research content in plain language is another way to make research more accessible. Sharing content in other formats such as through video or podcasts can be a good method too.

From Sue’s experience writing and doing presentation work with self-advocates, she has learned to take more of a back seat and practices “sharing the microphone” with those who’s voices should be the loudest: People like Peter who are the actual experts in the field of their lives. Sue notes that when we give self-advocates this ability to direct the research and work, innovative and more inclusive means of sharing research can develop: “Allowing self-advocates to direct us rather than us directing self-advocates is something we can all practice. Peter is the one who encouraged me to do more graphic illustrations. He requested that we have graphic note taking at meetings so that anyone who does not read would be able to review the minutes in a graphic format. When we published an article on the history of institutions together, Peter said we needed to tell his story in images, and requested we create visual artifacts of some of the more challenging experiences in the institution. Together we developed visuals to make the story accessible for those who don’t read. Without Peter’s direction, we wouldn’t have been able to reach as many people and have the impact of his story.”

Finally, Peter reminds us that remaining accountable to the community the research is trying to serve is one of the most important ways of ensuring the research stays accessible. As Peter noted, “We need something that’s real, something that people can relate to, and understand right in the moment.”

Hopefully this article serves as a reminder that we all need to continue to strive to be as inclusive in our research work as possible. And as a side note, if you come up with a better word for research, let Peter and me know!

With the holidays over and a new calendar started, most of us spend January focusing on getting back into a routine. Many of you may have come up with a traditional New Year’s resolution, like eating more veggies or cutting down on waste- and these are great personal goals! However, the purpose of this article will be to challenge you to also set a professional goal: To be more community-first.

Whether you’re a student, a faculty member, a CCE practitioner, or a community partner, we can all challenge ourselves to be more community-first in our work. We are offering you two sets of actions that will help you be more community-first in the new year: ensure an accessible work space, and share resources. Hopefully, you’ll find some practical ideas on how to improve your professional world by making it more community-first.

Action 1: Ensure an accessible work space

In November, our focused on ensuring the inclusion of people with disabilities. Ensuring accessibility is, of course, something that we all need to be doing year-round. However, we challenge you to take a look around your work space, whether it’s an office, a community center, a classroom, etc., and look for barriers for those with disabilities.

These can take the form of architectural barriers like stairs leading to your building without an accompanying ramp, or technological barriers like the absence of a microphone in a large lecture hall.

When looking for areas of improvement, don’t forget about attitudinal barriers that may exist in your work space. Barriers aren’t always as easy as spotting a missing accessible washroom. Sometimes, a proper scan of barriers will lead to the discovery that your job opportunities are not being advertised in accessible spaces (e.g. online, or through a university disability initiative).

Of course, there are countless types of barriers that your workspace can improve on – and when you’ve identified one, either address it yourself, or send it to the proper channels.

Action 2: Share resources

In the New Year, we would also like to challenge you to take inventory of your resources and make sure that they are being adequately shared. If you’re in a position of power, you may not even be aware of the types of resources that you can share with your community partners. We suggest that you pay attention to the ways in which you can share financial resources, knowledge, and space.

If you’re working in an academic setting, you may be familiar with some of the ways to share resources with your community partners (e.g. mobilizing funding by placing research assistants in community organizations, or offering travel bursaries). Talk with your team to look for other avenues to share financial resources, and ask your partners how best to redistribute funds.

As I’m sure you already know, knowledge is one of the most powerful resources in existence. If you’re a community member, you have access to community knowledge. Take a moment to make sure that this knowledge is being shared with everyone at the table. And take the time to ensure that you and your academic partners are working with a shared language that puts you all on the same page. The more voices that are heard, the better!

A third way to make sure you are adequately sharing resources in the new year is to make sure that you are sharing your space. This could mean offering community partners access to meeting rooms, university library collections, or even parking spaces. It could also mean planning meetings at local community centers so meetings are more accessible to everyone.

There are many other ways to ensure that you’re sharing your resources with the goal of being community-first. As always, the first step is awareness, so make sure that you take inventory of the resources at your disposal, be they physical or intellectual, and offer them to your partners.

New Year: New Improvements

We hope that you are inspired to make your workspace more community-first, be it by improving accessibility or sharing more resources. These are only two simple resolutions that you can achieve this year, but feel free to come up with your own! Remember that the New Year is a great opportunity to set new standards of excellence, and being community-first is just about the most excellent thing we can think of.

For more about how to create an accessible workspace, check out our articles: and here.

If you’re looking for more ways to see to it that your resources are being shared, check out our article on the subject from last May.

Although the 16 days of activism against gender-based violence may have come to a close, the fight against gender-based violence must continue year-round.

A key first step that each and every one of us can take is to listen. Listen to the 1 in 3 women affected by gender-based violence. Listen to the marginalized women who are at a much greater risk of being targeted. Listen to those who are taking action against gender-based violence and ask how you can support.

Listening is precisely what we did at the recent December 1st march to End Gender-Based Violence hosted by the Grandmothers Advocacy Network (), the Ottawa Coalition to end Violence Against Women (), and Women In International Security Canada ().

The march began at the Canadian Tribute to Human Rights monument at Minto Park. While participants mingled, GRAN handed out homemade signs and flameless candles for participants to carry on the march to City Hall. At City Hall, participants were welcomed to sit and listen to the evening’s presenters.

The theme of this year’s event was End Violence Against Women in the World of Work.

Opening the evening’s remarks was Algonquin elder Annie Smith St. Georges. She spoke of the ten years she spent on Parliament Hill making inquiries for missing and murdered indigenous women. Although an was finally opened in 2016, Annie commented that many cases still go unchecked every year. Annie also touched on her work with victims of residential schools. She concluded her speech by reminding the audience that: “we are all the caregivers of human kind” and we must look out for each other. She also noted that Mother Earth is suffering because we have failed to love, care for, and respect her. She likened the world’s treatment of Mother Earth to the treatment of women in society and stated definitively that we must say “no”, “non”, or “ka” to ongoing violence and injustice against women and Mother Earth.

Roua Aljied joined the event in the form of a prerecorded video. The Ottawa spoken word poet was unable to make the event in person, but sent a video of her original slam poem, “Primary Colours”, which narrated the story of a young artist who would paint everything, including herself, and who would later become painted in bruises by the man she loved. The video ended with a powerful message to support the UN policy to end domestic violence.

The keynote speaker of the evening was Mercy Lawluvi, of Immigrant Women Services Ottawa (IWSO). Mercy spoke of immigrant and refugee women experiencing violence, and reminded the audience that “gender-based violence exists across cultures.” On this note, she spoke to the root cause of gender-based violence: inequality. She reminded the audience that racism, poverty, sexism, sexual orientation discrimination, and ableism perpetuate this inequality.

Mercy then discussed the #MeToo movement that sparked in 2016 when women joined together in publicly speaking out about their assaults. She believes this to be the first step in a paradigm shift regarding societal reactions to violence against women. She said that more women are finding the confidence and courage to speak out. And women’s organizations are keeping the movement alive on social media in Ottawa by using the hashtag #WhatNowOttawa.

Mercy continued, saying that despite this encouragement, a significant amount of violence continues to go unreported. She said that immigrant and refugee women are particularly hesitant to come forward. She emphasized the need to create conditions where survivors are treated well, and are supported.

Mercy ended her keynote speech with a message that men and boys need to be included in the conversation as well. She encouraged the audience to challenge stereotypes, and apply a gender equality lens to all public policies: “Let’s not forget that together we can make a difference in the eradication of this societal scourge, particularly in other parts of the world where women and girls are most vulnerable.”

City councillor for Somerset ward, Catherine McKenney took the stage in lieu of mayor, Jim Watson (who did not make it to the event).

Catherine spoke primarily of violence against women and its connection to poverty and a lack of access to affordable housing. She reminded us that we are extremely fortunate here in Ottawa to have access to as many resources that we do (e.g. clean water and education). “However, many of our residents face a very different reality,” she continued, mentioning that trans women, racialized women, and sex workers are particularly vulnerable.

Catherine urged the audience to invest in social services to combat the cycle of poverty that leads to inequality and violence. In this same vein, she reminded the audience to hold our elected officials accountable, at every single level of government, stating that we need to demand that our governmental institutions “invest in the people who need investments.”

The final speaker of the evening was Anita Vandenbeld, MP representing Ottawa West. Anita iterated that, “we need to do this [work] 365 days a year, not just during these 16 days.” She shared her thoughts on political intimidation that is used across the globe in order to keep women out of the decision-making process and urged women everywhere to use the hashtag #HearMeToo.

If you are looking for more information on how to help end gender-based violence, check out the following organizations (who all had booths at the event):

The last time your community-campus engagement (CCE) project held a meeting, was there a push button on the meeting room door so a participant in a wheelchair could access the room? What about a sign language interpreter, or someone available to take notes for the member with an intellectual disability? After the meeting, did you share your meeting notes in a format easily interpreted by an assisted reading device? Our bet is probably no, and not because your project is inconsiderate, but simply because, in our current culture, thinking about all forms of accessibility isn’t yet a priority. But the Government of Canada has been working to help change this culture and happily, some local institutions are following suit.

Keep reading to find out what is changing and what YOU can do in your CCE work to help.

Canadian Legislation to Increase Opportunity for Persons with Disabilities

Throughout 2016, the Canadian Government, under the leadership of the Minister of Sport and People with Disabilities, consulted Canadians with disabilities in order to better understand the challenges they faced living with a disability in Canada. What they heard loud and clear was that accessible employment was a number one barrier.

As a result, a was tabled in June 2018 with the goal of combating the unemployment rate of Canadians with disabilities (which is disproportionately high compared to Canadians without disabilities). The bill focuses largely on the removal of barriers, which they define as: “Anything physical, architectural, technological or attitudinal, anything that is based on information or communications or anything that is the result of a policy or practice – that hinders the full and equal participation in society of persons with a physical, mental, intellectual, learning, communication or sensory impairment or a functional limitation.”

This bill is an important step forward in helping to change society’s attitudes and approaches toward hiring people with disabilities.

Ottawa’s Post-Secondary Institutions Collaborate to create the David C. Onley Initiative for Employment and Enterprise Development

Inspired by the national legislation, the David C. Onley Initiative for Employment and Enterprise Development is an example of a local initiative that researches and creates pathways to support post-secondary students with disabilities. The initiative is named after David Onley, who was Ontario’s first lieutenant-governor with a disability. During his time as lieutenant-general (2007-2014), he used his position to start the conversation about barriers that Ontarians living with disabilities face.

With a five-million-dollar budget and a two-year timeline, the David C. Onley Initiative hopes to assist students with disabilities find employment after graduation. Similar to our national issue, even students who have graduated from post-secondary institutions in Ottawa are less likely to gain employment following the completion of their studies.

The David C. Onley initiative comes from a partnership between Ottawa’s post-secondary institutions, and includes ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University, University of Ottawa, La CitĂ© CollĂ©giale, and Algonquin College. Each of these institutions has their own department for accessibility. For example, at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University, students with disabilities are welcome at the Paul Menton Centre for Students with Disabilities, which supports students seeking academic accommodation, and offers assistance with learning strategies.

In order to achieve the goal of increasing student employment after graduation, the David C. Onley Initiative is also conducting research to determine why the employment rates for graduated students with disabilities are so low compared to those without disabilities.

Another major goal of the initiative is knowledge mobilization. The initiative has been sharing the results of its work between the institutions involved, and will be working on furthering knowledge mobilization with media articles.

Ultimately, the David C. Onley Initiative seeks to develop strategic partnerships with post-secondary institutions, employment agencies, and employers. These partnerships, like your CCE partnerships, will offer new avenues through which diverse individuals can continue to make meaningful contributions to their communities.

What You Can Do as a CCE Practitioner

Aside from the David C. Onley Initiative, many post-secondary institutions have departments or programs that support knowledge and access for persons with disabilities. For example, ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University has the READ initiative, which stands for: Research, Education, Accessibility, and Design. READ functions both to provide support for researchers seeking to advance accessibility, and for people with disabilities seeking opportunities for employment.

If you are based at a post-secondary institution, make sure that you familiarize yourself with your local accessibility resource centre. If you are based in the community, see if you can access the centres at post-secondary institutions. It is also good to connect with organizations in your community specifically focused on advocating for rights for persons with disabilities.

While the recent national legislation, and local initiatives (like the David. C. Onley Initiative), will hopefully help change the conversation about disability in Canada, you can also contribute by becoming familiar with the barriers that currently exist as part of your CCE work, your organization, and your knowledge mobilization efforts. Like most challenges, the first step is awareness.

The following is a non-exhaustive list of steps that you can take:

• Make sure that you are including discussions about disability in your CCE work and rely on the experts: Ask those with disabilities how best to accommodate their needs.
• If you’re looking to add more people to your team, ensure that research and job opportunities are shared in a variety of ways and in accessible formats. This can include: word of mouth, university or college websites, podcasts or videos, and posters in accessibility centres.
• As you conduct your CCE work, make sure that your meeting spaces are accessible. You may be losing important research participants because of a physical barrier blocking your space. If possible in your area, plan your meetings at a space that is close to accessible transit too.
• When you are sharing your research, you can ensure that your findings are accessible to everyone. There are plenty of alternative formats for sharing your findings in order to make it accessible to a broader audience. Try providing an electronic transcript online that can be read on different devices, as well as offering an audio version. For an internationally recognized technology, try converting your findings into the .

As a nation, we have a long way to go when it comes to ensuring access to all parts of society for everyone, but the new legislation on accessibility is a positive step towards this goal. On a local scale, initiatives like the David C. Onley Initiative in Ottawa are also helping to change our culture by pointing research in the right direction. But it is up to us as individuals, and especially as CCE practitioners, to make sure we change the conversation when it comes to accessibility.

You have the power to make a difference, and sometimes the first step is as simple as acknowledging a problem so you can start to find some more inclusive solutions!

CFICE broadly defines being “community-first” as: “engaging in equitable partnerships to co-create knowledge and action plans for addressing pressing community issues.” For us, being community-first is an integral part of community-campus engagement (CCE), but the trick to really being community-first is defining what this looks like to all partners involved. Why? Because everyone has their own definition of “community”, and what it means to be “community-first.” These definitions can vary across the globe, depending on the culture, the individuals involved, and the type of work being completed.

We reached out to several CFICE partners, and Natasha Pei and Crystal Tremblay responded with their unique perspectives on what “community” means for them, and how they ensure they are being “community-first” in their work.

is the Manager of Eastern Cities for Tamarack Institute’s Vibrant Communities Canada. She worked within CFICE’s poverty-reduction hub as both a research assistant and community co-lead, and now operates within a network of 69 cities and community collaboratives that implement local poverty reduction strategies across Canada. Natasha strives to develop one-on-one relationships with local communities in order to hear their goals and challenges, and with their expertise, to develop personalized and group supports towards poverty reduction in Canada.

is an assistant professor in the department of Geography at the University of Victoria. She is also a special advisor on community-engaged scholarships and is the Research Director with the UNESCO Chair in Community-based Research and Social Responsibility in Higher Education. Crystal is very experienced and has worked with many different communities. She did her PhD in Brazil while working with recycling cooperatives, and worked on with water governance programs for water and sanitation in Cape Town and Ghana for her Post-Doc. Crystal has also co-edited a book on community-campus partnerships around the world.

What does the term “community” mean in your work?

Natasha: We work with community in two contexts: local place-based community and communities of interest. The former comprises our Cities Reducing Poverty membership. Communities are geographic and their scope determined by local collaboratives coming together to reduce poverty. Communities are often synonymous with cities, but also include Regional Municipalities and a cluster of counties. They are multi-sectoral in nature and typically bring together influential nonprofit leaders, municipal and public staff, people with lived/living experience, and the private sector. Through each of their networks and through the collaborative’s activities, residents at-large in that area are engaged in planning and implementing poverty reduction work.

Community is also a term we use to describe our online network for people working or interested in poverty reduction. Because we work nationally, it is our responsibility to create a space where local communities can keep connected to one another throughout the year and learn together. We invite members and their partners to help co-host webinars, communities of practice, co-author publications, etc. It is a collaborative learning community where members are invited to co-generate knowledge as much as they consume.

Crystal: I consider “community” quite broad. Coming from the institutional perspective, I envision community as anyone external to the university when I’m speaking in a [community-campus engagement] CCE research context, so working with nonprofits, for profits, governments, society organizations, [and] first nations… Most of my work, personally, has mostly been with civil society organizations and government and then from some of my other perspectives of community, it’s people coming together to share a common vision and interests.

But then also thinking of community globally, it’s really hard to land on one way of thinking about community.

What does “community-first” engagement mean in your work?

Natasha: Community-first means developing a relationship with city/community leads, listening deeply to what they say their goals and challenges are, and adapting our network and supports to be useful to our members – delivering tailored supports when and how members need to receive them. Supports that are not used are not useful.

Crystal: It means putting community at the center of what we do. So really coming in thinking about how to work with community where they’re really at the center of what we’re doing throughout the [entire] research process… From thinking through what the research looks like [and] co creating the design together…Recognizing the different power [dynamics] between different actors, and making sure that community is the driving force behind decision making and funding decisions.

Do you have suggestions for how to be more community-first?

°ä°ů˛â˛őłŮ˛ą±ô:ĚýWhen we’re working with community, [we need] to actually work in community and not always assume that everyone comes up to the university. When we’re organizing events, we want to have a lot of community there, we don’t just want academics. If we’re working with lots of different community organizations, [we can] support them by going to their place of work…Making sure that there’s always honorariums, that there’s food, [and] that you’re really acknowledging and valuing your community-partner’s time and knowledge in everything we do. And really thinking of how to support the agency of community as much as possible.

Meeting IN community spaces is an important way of being community-first.

Being community-first can have positive impacts

CFICE has been working in community-campus partnerships for 6+ years now, and we’ve tried to embody a community-first ethos in our work. With this focus, we’ve managed to contribute to our CCE partnerships in ways that our community partners have found valuable. Below are some thoughts from our community partners on the benefits they have experienced in working with CFICE.

“[Working with Food Secure Canada has] been a great opportunity to build relationships with community organizations and academics across Canada and to hopefully have a real impact on the government’s policy-building process.” -Amanda Wilson, Community Co-lead, CCE Brokering Food Sovereignty Working Group

“Through the community projects in CFICE, and particularly in the Poverty Reduction hub, we’ve been able to…more intentionally leverage university resources and community resources and I think, in many ways, it’s also raised the profile of poverty in Canada that this work is going on.” -Liz Weaver, VP, Tamarack Institute, Poverty Reduction Hub

“CFICE has meant to me and my organization the opportunity to engage really deliberately and in a way that is more transparent with our academic partners to make sure that our partnerships are as sustainable and impactful as possible.” -Brianna Salmon, Executive Director of GreenUP, Community Environmental Sustainability (Pbto/Halib) Hub Partner

“CFICE has fostered a number of opportunities where the criteria [of project work] was very broad, and this lets a community decide what the initiatives should be.” -Cathy Wright, (Past) Executive Director, Living SJ, Poverty Reduction Hub Partner

“To me, CFICE means opportunity. It’s good to have an organization that supports this kind of research, community-based research. We can’t afford to have lots and lots of research that doesn’t touch peoples’ lives and that’s what CFICE is supporting – research that touches lives and makes change.” -Melissa Johnston, (past) MA candidate, CFICE Community Environmental Sustainability RA

What does being community-first mean to you?

Often, when we think about the actors involved in community-campus engagement (CCE), we think of our local community-based organizations. However, staying local isn’t the only option for meaningful CCE work. You can also participate in important CCE on an international level. International CCE might involve travelling to a distant community, or working remotely as a part of an international team.

Dr. Stephen Fai, ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University

To shed some light on international CCE, its challenges and rewards, CFICE sat down with Dr. Stephen Fai, Director of the (CIMS) at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University and Principal Investigator of the internationally-operated  (NPNT) Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) partnership project. As a partnership project, NPNT focuses on training highly qualified personnel through CCE experiences. It does this by coordinating student exchanges in which Masters and PhD students are placed in internships with international partners. Students work with universities, research institutes, private companies, governments, and non-profit organizations to complete interdisciplinary research and projects exploring the impacts of digital technologies on architectural rehabilitation and conservation.

Funding: International CCE requires more money for travel

An important part of ensuring that your international CCE project is sustainable is securing funding. Proper funding can open doors to up-to-date technologies, account for travel costs, offer compensation to community and researchers, allow for the purchase of general supplies, and much more. For international CCE in particular, having adequate funding to support collaboration, both in the form of travel and technologies to enhance collaboration, is important and generally costs more than it does for locally-based CCE projects.

Based on his experience as an academic planning CCE projects, Dr. Fai recommends applying for relevant grants from funding agencies like the Tri-Agency. These three organizations–the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), and SSHRC–are extremely useful resources for academics. With the right grant application to one of these agencies, you could have the necessary funds to get your international CCE project off the ground.

The NPNT project was a good fit for funding from SSHRC, which has a mandate to specifically support student research, learning, and training, because the NPNT project prioritizes student CCE placements as its method for conducting research and mobilizing knowledge. By developing the project around international CCE placements, Dr. Fai and his co-applicants were able to justify the higher travel lines included in their initial grant application. They also clearly outlined the in-kind contributions provided by their international community and academic partners as a means of showing the important commitment of partners to the international placement structure.

That said, funding can come from other sources than just grants. For example, in-kind contributions from partners or sponsorships from external organizations are two great sources of resources for your project. Community organizations might also have the ability to apply for community-oriented funds meant to support new pilot programs or projects. When it comes to funding, collaboratively brainstorming resource outlets is a good way to ensure no stone will be left unturned.

An example of digital architecture in action. ©CIMS

Language, Time, and Cultural Differences: Additional challenges to international CCE

Once the project has been funded, there are a few other hurdles you may need to tackle, such as language barriers, time differences, and cultural differences.

Before embarking on an international CCE partnership, make sure that you have a way of effectively communicating with your partners. This can take the form of language lessons, reliance on translation technologies, or the hiring of an interpreter. Dr. Fai mentioned that within his line of work, language barriers have not been much of a problem. He notes that the digital platforms within which they work often function in English. As long as their partner knows the program, they can simply communicate through the software.

Working on projects involving partners in different time zones can also offer more of a challenge. Finding times for project meetings and check-ins can prove difficult, for example. But different time zones can also be beneficial. For example, if one partner’s day time is another partner’s nighttime, work on the project can literally happen “around the clock”, potentially leading to quicker completion timelines.

Cultural expectations can also be a challenge in international CCE work. For example, in the first year of its project placements, the NPNT project found out that their French and Italian partners had different expectations with respect to placement timelines. As Dr. Fai pointed out: “For us, sending someone away for 16 weeks in the summer makes perfect sense, but France and Italy don’t really work in August.” In order to manage this challenge, Dr. Fai told CFICE that NPNT would accommodate by shortening summer internships, or having students finish their work in a secondary placement.

In addition to these bigger challenges, smaller challenges unique to international CCE can also arise. For example, international travel requires valid passports and visas. There is nothing worse than establishing a partnership with a community across the globe, and then not being able to make it to their project meeting or event. This wastes not only your time, but the time of your valuable partners. Staying aware of both the big and the small challenges in international CCE is important!

Being community-first in a different community

Speaking of important relationships among partners, when engaging in international CCE, or CCE of any kind, CFICE encourages academics to maintain a community-first mindset. In the CFICE context, this means engaging in equitable partnerships to co-create knowledge for addressing pressing community issues. However, the definition of what it means to be community-first can be different for different partners, and can change from culture to culture. As the outsider, it is important to understand your international partners’ definition(s) of “community-first”. In order to do this, you can ask your partners what they hope to gain from the relationship, and together, you can collaboratively develop expectations around how all partners will act in a community first manner.

For the NPNT project, Dr. Fai and his partners have agreed that being community first means having the community reach out to him instead of him approaching the community. To ensure community partners feel comfortable approaching the NPNT project, project members establish open lines of communication, such as sharing project news and calls for placements, that give community the knowledge and opportunity to reach out when they require or desire assistance. For example, after seeing the work the CIMS lab did to rehabilitate the Canadian parliament buildings, international partners in Dublin reached out to Dr. Fai’s team because they were looking to do the same thing. Dr. Fai added that NPNT’s work is inherently community first because they are working on projects identified by community. He notes “the projects we’re involved in are community-based. So it’s not as if we’re doing research and then trying to figure out a way to apply it to a situation.”

Communication is key

As with any CCE work, it is essential to keep the lines of communication open between all partners. This can be difficult even in the most local of settings, so international CCE can require extra effort. Start communicating with all partners right off the bat, and be sure to maintain regular communication with partners throughout the project. Connecting with partners can take the form of weekly email updates, monthly phone calls, or annual meetings. For NPNT, annual meetings at which all partners are present (either in-person, or via Skype) allows the team to stay updated on project progress and encourages openness between partners, which strengthens their relationships. Partners also prepare and share lists of the projects for which they are looking for interns, as well as lists of their own available interns ready to be sent to a project. These lists are shared with all international partners, helping to connect interns with placements, and foster deeper relationships through partners helping each other. According to Fai, these methods of communication ensure, “everybody knows what everybody’s doing, whether they’re directly involved with that project or not.”

Are you ready?

Dr. Fai left us with some final notes about engaging in international CCE. He reminds us, that like everything worth doing, “you have to be willing to take a risk.” It can be incredibly challenging to begin new partnerships, to embark on international travel, and to get to know a different community. However, it can also be extremely rewarding. In terms of an exchange, he notes that “when someone goes to another institution, they take a lot of our corporate knowledge with them. And to have that come back, makes both groups stronger.”

Now that you’re aware of some of the unique challenges that you may face when engaging in international CCE, are you ready?

In the initial stages of getting involved in a community-campus engagement (CCE) project, community-based organizations (CBOs) may feel intimidated, or that they have little influence in their relationship with academic partners. This power imbalance may be real or perceived. Within these engagements, trust is essential among partners to ensure that the partnership is equitable and valuable for everyone involved.

To start the process of building trust, one of the most important aspects that needs to be discussed is potential power dynamics that may exist within CCE relationships. All members of a CCE partnership have a role to play with respect to examining their own influence and privilege, and in negotiating how best to share and exercise this power for the good of the project.

Potential power differences between community and academic partners

Within the academic context, faculty and students both need to be acutely aware of their privileged access to supports within the post-secondary institution (PSI), and how this access to resources and funding can significantly differ from the situations of their community partners. For example, faculty and student partners are often compensated for the time they devote to CCE research through salaries, research stipends, grants, or hourly wages. These resources allow students and faculty more freedom in arranging their time to devote to CCE-related interests. Community partners, on the other hand, may not be compensated by their own organizations for this type of work; in fact, their participation may sometimes be fully voluntary. As a result, community partners may have limited time or capacity to engage in a full range of CCE activities, such as attending meetings, providing written or verbal support on research and governance processes, or crafting research outputs that will be most relevant to community. This imbalance can lead to academic needs and interests being unintentionally prioritized within projects, simply because the community’s voice is not able to be as present within CCE efforts.

Community and academic partners also work on different project timelines — whereas academic time and resources are subject to the academic calendar, community organizations are beholden to timelines that allow them to best serve their clients. Whether it’s a community partner not responding to academic inquiries during busy summer months, or an academic partner only resurfacing on email after conference season has ended, this divergence in timelines can lead to the feeling that each other’s partner is controlling (or hampering) progress on collaborative efforts.

Further, community and academic partners often have different needs with respect to when and how to share the learnings that are being generated through their partnerships. For example, academics need to publish journal articles to validate their research in the eyes of academic hiring committees, whereas community partners often request more accessible plain language output formats such as reports, videos, and other content that is often considered “grey literature” (and therefore not necessarily scholarly or legitimate) by academic tenure and promotion committees. Adding to this discrepancy is the fact that most CCE funding funnels through academic institutions; as a result, academic partners need to really think about the decisions surrounding what types of outputs are prioritized, particularly with respect to which outputs get funded.

Finally, it is important to note that power and privilege do not just rest with academics and students. Community organizations regularly hold the key to a lot of valuable knowledge about, and access to, the communities and issues being impacted by CCE projects. In fact, without community input and participation in CCE projects, the impacts of any research are likely to be less effective and useful to the community.

Overall, self-awareness is the first step in ensuring an equitable relationship among partners. The second step involves opening the door to direct conversations about power dynamics. Whether we hold the role of community partners, faculty or students, outlined below are some questions we can ask ourselves and of our partnerships as we navigate the power dynamics of our community-campus relationships and work together to achieve shared goals.

Questions CBOs can ask about power

The first thing any CBO should consider prior to entering a CCE partnership is whether or not you feel respected by your proposed academic partner. Choosing an academic partner who is community-first will go a long way towards ensuring your needs are met in a respectful and considerate manner.

Beyond deciding to work with a community-first academic partner, you can also help balance power in CCE partnerships by requesting to be included in the governance of the project. Collaboratively figuring out how project decisions will be made and how the team will communicate will also allow you to ensure your organization’s needs are being met. As well, ask for a clear sense of how many hours each partner will be expected to contribute, and at what time during the year, so expectations can be properly addressed and managed.

It is also important to ensure a community spot at the table when it comes to project budgeting, so you are aware of how the money is being spent. It is important to be part of planning meetings as well, as an equitable partnership begins with joint-decision making. Surprisingly, this might not always occur to your academic partners, so be sure that you are involved in the planning process. Be sure to ask about project timelines, as well as what academic partners’ exit will look like. Your academic partners may not have considered the effects that an abrupt exit (at the time of their deadline) will have on your organization and your project. Ensure that academic involvement will be phased out responsibly so that your work can continue independently beyond their labour.

It is also helpful to be aware of opportunities to request access to academic resources like meeting rooms or dedicated student research assistants. Your campus partners also likely have access to databases through their library that would be very costly to subscribe to independently. In general, ask about the range of research resources – physical or online – that are available.

Questions faculty can ask about power

As a faculty member of a PSI, you may not always realize the extent of the power you potentially hold within CCE projects. Yes, you must ensure that your funders are satisfied with the type of research being conducted, however, there are also opportunities for funders to listen to you, and they may hold your opinion in (relatively) high regard. Within this position, it is often up to you to ensure that community voices are being heard in CCE environments and in regard to funder expectations, to share resources, ensure accessible spaces for your community partners, and to assist community partners in finding avenues for future funding.

Start off by using your position as a sort of intermediary in order to help establish clear roles among partners, and to ask all parties about their expectations for the project. What do your funders require, and more importantly, what are your community partners hoping to receive from this relationship? Ask how the goals of the CBO can best be achieved and what they require from you in terms of support.

As an academic, your goal is to gather as much knowledge as possible. Remember that your community partners are also very knowledgeable and often hold a breadth of valuable experience. Ask them how best to engage with them and the communities they serve in order to ensure their voices are heard. Remember that the research you publish plays an integral role in knowledge mobilization. What you publish (be it an article or a book) will have an impact on the community. In order to include CBOs in the process, ask how best to both engage and feature your community partners in your work.

Also, be sure to use your relationships with funders in order to request more funding for the CBO. When you apply for future research funding, think about what would best benefit your community partners? What type of research are they looking for, and how can you use your position to provide them with access? If your research shows that a specific community-based project is working, make sure that your funders are aware of this.

Much of the power imbalance between academics and community-based organizations comes from a lack of access to resources. Ask around your institution to find out what resources might be shared with your community partners. Then, ask your community partners about the types of resources to which they would like access.

Physical access is also often an important consideration for partners; when planning an event or a meeting, ask your community partners what venue would be best suited to their needs. Institutions can be daunting and difficult to get to, so remember that while you may have a parking pass and know the campus layout, valuable community partners likely do not. Ask when and where in-person meetings could best be held, and about any other ways that you might respectfully accommodate your partners’ needs.

Questions students can ask about power

Though you may not realize it, as a student you also hold power in a CCE relationship. With this in mind, it is important to take some time to think about the influence and privilege that you may have within the relationship, for example, such as being paid to attend meetings, or having free access to library resources for completing literature reviews. It is also helpful to think about ways you can use these privileges to enhance your engagement with community.

Be sure to ask specific questions about the goals of the CBO and what type of assistance they require from you. From there you can figure out how best to provide them with what they need. Think outside the box too. For example, if there are specific skills or knowledge your community partner would like to gain that also align with your personal skills, training, or educational needs and interests, you can research free courses, workshops, and lectures that might be provided on campus and make a point of attending so you can then share the information with your community partner.

Provided you are comfortable with this type of role, you are also really well positioned to serve as an intermediary between faculty and the CBO, as you are most likely to be on the ground floor of the project. Ensuring all team members are communicating with each other regularly will be an important, power-balancing contribution you can provide to the CCE project. Work with both your community partner and your faculty partner to figure out how best you can provide this type of assistance in a way that respects the time and expertise you bring to the table.

In conclusion, whether you’re a student, a community partner, or a faculty member, you can hold a significant amount of power. It is up to each member of the partnership to work together to ensure that it is equitable.

When it comes to making community-campus engagement (CCE) more equitable, a small policy change by a college or university can make a huge difference. This was the experience of the Community First: Impacts of Community Engagement (CFICE) project when their host institution, ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University, decided to change how it interpreted and implemented its travel policy.

Listen to the podcast below, or continue scrolling to read the full story! Download a PDF of the podcast transcript.

Prior to 2016, CFICE participants were expected to pay up front for their travel costs. Travelers could then submit their receipts for reimbursement after their travel took place. While ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´â€™s travel policy allowed for other means of travel funding to be distributed, having travelers submit expense claims after travel was a way of ensuring the university remained accountable to its grant funders.

“The university as a Public Institution is obligated to account for every dollar spent for any grants it receives. Government funding often carries additional restrictions,” explains Genevieve Harrison, CFICE Project Administrator. “The easiest way for an institution to do this is to only release money after proof can be provided for how that money has been spent. This puts the burden of financial accountability on the traveler.”

CFICE Principal Investigator, Peter Andree.

Depending on the travel requirements, the costs to CFICE participants could sometimes be well over $1,500. For CFICE members with limited financial flexibility, like students and some community partners, carrying this expense burden for weeks or even months after travelling was extremely challenging, and perpetuated a power imbalance that went against CFICE’s community-first focus.

“The original policy interpretation impacted our ability to equitably include community voices in our project planning,” states Peter Andrée, CFICE Principal Investigator (PI). “While we ensured community voices were present at meetings through technology like Skype, it wasn’t ideal. For a community-first CCE project, we can’t afford to not have community partners at the table.”

Changing how ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University implemented its travel policy didn’t happen overnight. Instead, it took months of deliberation by a special committee of university representatives. In late 2016, ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´â€™s Research Accounting office updated its interpretation of the travel policy, granting ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ and associated individuals the ability to apply for travel bursaries under select circumstances.

Unlike travel expense claims, travel bursaries are granted based on travel estimates. They can therefore be provided to individuals in advance of travel to cover costs up front. This change has had a big impact on the ability of CFICE to remain true to their mandate of being community-first. For example, the bursary has meant a stronger presence of community partners at CFICE events where project decision-making takes place.

“The bursary [available for the CFICE Community Impact Symposium] meant more of our community partners could actually attend to help us interpret the data and shape the recommendations. That event changed how we planned to share our research results, which will help us reach more people in the long-run,” says Andrée. The impacts of this policy change haven’t just been felt at a project level. CFICE individuals have benefitted too.

Patricia Ballamingie and Natasha Pei at the CFICE Community Impact Symposium, January 2017.

“Support through the travel bursary created an opportunity for me to participate in a national conversation about CCE,” explains Colleen Christopherson-Cote, Community Co-lead of CFICE’s Evaluation and Analysis Working Group. “Without this support I would never be able to manage travel and participation in multiple events in Ottawa. In return, my expertise and community voice would not be included as easily in the dialogue at the CFICE table. Including, and resourcing, opportunities for equitable community participation is at the heart of the Community First approach.”

This bursary is a start in addressing the costs to community partners of participating in CCE, but one significant downside is that the bursary is taxable, reducing the full amount of reimbursement that participants receive. Moving forward, it is important to keep trying to find even better resource solutions for communities. As Andrée notes, it’s often the little changes that can have far-reaching impacts on community-campus engagement work.

As AndrĂ©e reflects, “This experience with ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University’s travel policy is a reminder that when institutions are more community first in their policies and practices, even in small ways, this can have a big impact on how they serve their communities.”

Become more community-first!

To learn more about how to make your work more community-first, check out our list of actions for all community-campus engagement practitioners!

Tessa Nasca records focus group feedback as part of their work with ANC.

Many grad students enter their Master’s degree or PhD with the hopes of helping their community. Community-campus engagement (CCE) is one way students can maximize the community benefits of their research. CCE work requires a significant time commitment, and it can be difficult to balance one’s research interests with the needs of the community. But this type of research can be extremely rewarding and give a completely unique perspective to the community issues at hand.

CFICE spoke to Tessa Nasca who completed an MA thesis in community-campus engagement to get some tips on how to do a CCE-related thesis.

Choosing to first enter grad school, and then selecting a research topic isn’t necessarily the only order in which to do things. For Tessa Nasca, Trent MA Sustainability graduate, it was the community organization that called first. Nasca took a different route to their master’s research. Rather than starting as a student and choosing a project, Nasca found an initiative that was looking for a student.

Nasca worked with the Stewart Street Active Neighbourhoods Project, in Peterborough. Nasca was able to work with this participatory planning project, whose goals are to engage members of the community who are traditionally marginalized and excluded from planning processes of this nature. Their role was to help plan and implement the project, but also to allow for a participatory evaluation of the project, and this is what led to a thesis. Nasca’s graduate work offered a direct line to their future career, and they now work as a project manager for the Active Neighbourhoods Project at the Toronto Centre for Active Transportation.

Community-minded graduate students’ goals are often to support community-based projects that they are passionate about while at the same time attaining a degree and building a career. However, Nasca warns that doing a CCE based thesis might not be for everyone. It definitely takes a certain type of student to be able to undertake this work. It’s important that students ensure they are needed by the community. Working with a community project can require a significant amount of time and training, and students want to make sure they can work independently enough without requiring a personal on-the-job supervisor.

(From left to right) Tessa Nasca, Katie Caddigan, Nadine Changfoot, and Jason Hartwick meet to discuss the ANC Peterborough Project.

Speaking of jobs, pursuing a degree that involves CCE work is an extremely time-intensive process and students might find themselves putting in similar amounts of time that would be required for a full-time job. With respect to time, Nasca said, “Be prepared to put in more time than a lot of your peers,” at least at the Master’s level.

Students need to be prepared for the time investment that proper community-campus engagement demands. In order for the project to be mutually beneficial, students need to invest in creating meaningful relationships with the community partners. The effort towards building close relationships and maintaining a community-first perspective with the research can lead to rewarding results.

According to Nasca, , the local coordinating organization behind Peterborough’s Active Neighbourhoods Project work, was “able to apply some of the evaluation results [from their master’s thesis] when seeking additional funding to scale-up the Active Neighbourhoods project approach. GreenUP was successful in acquiring a three year Ontario Trillium Foundation grant to scale up the project approach that we piloted and evaluated.” Funders tend to be attracted to the evidence-based approaches, and student research can help build this base of evidence to demonstrate the efficacy of a particular project approach.

If you’re considering doing a thesis that involves CCE, remember that the community comes first. Make sure you are passionate about the project, and that they are passionate about you. If you’re willing to put in the work, a CCE thesis can give you a direct path to an awesome career, and will allow you to help your community along the way!