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:

  • Describe what community engagement means and why community engagement is important to learners' work whether it is based in research, public health, industry, philanthropy, etc. Learners also identify one community that would benefit from their partnership, and the bidirectional benefits that would result from the partnership. Use “Community Engagement, An Introduction: Public Health Centers for Excellence” video to build background/activate prior knowledge to assist in completing the task.
  • View “Building Trust Through Community Partnerships: video to build background/activate prior knowledge if needed, and identify one or two community-based organizations, churches/religious institutions, or grassroots organizations that are established in learners' communities. Learners choose one organization they would consider working with and outline an effective way to begin a community partnership using a step-by-step process.       


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