Smith College proposes to employ the Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) Model to establish an enduring partnership amongst researchers at Smith, the North End Outreach Network (NEON) and the German Gerena Community School of Springfield, Massachusetts. The North End has been defined as the poorest in the state and its residents are predominantly Puerto Rican. The goal of the academic-community partnership is to stimulate the development of transitional research addressing the critical disparity that exits in literacy between this community and others.
The specific aims for Phase I are: to firmly found an academic-community research partnership; to utilize the academic-community research partnership to elucidate the existing barriers to the engagement in supportive services for those most at risk in the community; to devise strategies for eliminating barriers to engagement for those most at risk in the community; to employ these strategies to engage a broad spectrum of the North End residents in the development and implementation of a community family literacy center; and, to work in partnership with North End residents to evaluate the initial success of the family literacy center and to identify long-term research goals so that further knowledge gained through basic research may be applied to address the literacy needs of the North End community. Working in close collaboration with NEON outreach workers and community representatives from schools, cultural organizations, the local citizens' board, community medical and mental health clinics, and others, researchers will devise a three-year plan for implementing and evaluating a family literacy program in a community center located within the Gerena School in the heart of the North End neighborhood. The first year of this process will involve a multipronged strategy of door-to door outreach, satellite neighborhood meetings and academic presentations. In years two and three, a series of community workshops involving residents, service providers, and faculty and student researchers will be held. A CBPR project that seeks to define and eliminate the barriers to the engagement of residents of the North End in the planning, implementation and evaluation of a family literacy center is of interest to Smith researchers from a diversity of disciplines including Education and Child Study, Exercise and Sports Studies, Philosophy, Psychology and Social Work. A common interest amongst the researchers is addressing an important problem related to health disparities and literacy research, namely, establishing a model for effective community engagement, particularly for those members of the community who are most at risk and least likely to access services. A model for successful community engagement will broadly impact research methodologies applicable to CBPR and health disparities, providing the foundation for the development of transitional research addressing the critical disparity that exits in literacy between this community and others. ? ? ? ?
