Developing Strong Community Partnerships

The purpose of the CTSI Developing Strong Community Partnerships Micro-credential is to acquire skills for connecting to your chosen stakeholder community. It outlines community engagement from initial planning and identifying relevant partners, to making partnerships and effective collaborations, to sustaining relationships. This micro-credential offers experiential learning opportunities and coached practice of community engagement skills, and best practices.

Upon completion of the Developing Strong Community Partnerships Micro-credential, learners will be provided a clear understanding of what community engagement is and what it is not. Common pitfalls experienced by researchers and their teams are presented and strategies to avoid them are provided. Plain language, trust-building, cultural and community humility, and building and maintaining relationships will be addressed. Assignments will describe successful strategies to engage community collaborators and unsuccessful strategies to avoid. In addition, learners will develop a plan to apply community engagement skills to their chosen team.

Curriculum — Videos:

Request and watch Community Engagement videos from past Core Competency Workshop Series from the CTSI Education Workforce Specialist to build or hone key teamwork skills. Workshop videos:

  • Introduction to Community Engagement (presented by Laurene Tumiel-Berhalter, PhD) 
  • Use of Plain Language and Plain Language Research Project (presented by Andy Strohmeier, MEd, Grace McKenzie, MEd)
  • Engaging New Community Collaborators (presented by Laurene Tumiel-Berhalter, PhD)  
  • Maintaining a Community Collaboration and Sustaining Partnership: Real Examples and Successes (presented by Laurene Tumiel-Berhalter, PhD)

Curriculum — Assignments:

  • Read the guide for “Community Engagement Plan” and brainstorm a mission for a community engagement plan. Learners review the mission in the “Community Engagement Plan” and think about their own mission. They identify how to make it meaningful for their work and their chosen community partner by writing a mission statement. They also identify how they would change the plan template to fit their needs.   
  • Review the "Community Engagement Plan" example and identify one or two pitfalls. Learners identify how they would plan for potential pitfalls, explaining how they would avoid them or remedy them if they occur. They also identify one method from the example that they would consider using in their own plan and explain their rationale for selecting this method of engagement. 

 

For more information and to access videos, contact Education Workforce Specialist Catherine Sedota, MS, at cmp9@buffalo.edu.