Research Education/Training Core Specific Aim 3: a) To expand and enhance the capabilities of academically-based health researchers and Native American community members to work in effective CBPR partnerships; and b) to increase the number of Native American students who are actively engaged in CBPR - research on health issues of their home communities. Dr. Mike Babcock will lead the Research Education/Training Core. Dr. Babcock is a Full Professor in the Department of Psychology and also an Affiliate Faculty member in the Division of Health Sciences. He has served as a faculty/research mentor for Native American students at Montana State University since 1994, sponsoring 16 minority students in his laboratory during this period. Dr. Babcock has been an active participant on numerous federally funded minority training grants including MBRS, MARC, BRIDGES, MAP, and IMSD. Other relevant administrative experience includes serving as Department Head of Psychology from 1998-2003, Graduate Program Coordinator (current), and Vice-Chair of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (current). Dr. Babcock is a member of Society for the Advancement of Chicanes and Native Americans in Science and serves on the MSU/AIRO advisory board. The science needed to address Native American health disparities should be culturally competent, community-driven and participatory, yet most academic researchers are not trained to conduct research in this manner10-57. Native American community partners deserve research partners that are well trained in health disparity issues,, cap able of translating across cultural divides, and know how, when and where to actively engage with community partners in the research process. While there are some academic practitioners of CBPR in Montana, there exists no formal infrastructure in place to encourage and train other interested research practitioners. At the same time, while there are Native American community members who work in partnership with academic researchers, there is no formal infrastructure to encourage and train other potential community partners. Other than the work thus far of the Consortium, there is no mechanism to engage community partners in a CBPR process and training doesn't exist to assist these engaged partners to conduct CBPR research. Just as community partners deserve researcher partners who are trained and dedicated to partnership research practices, it is important to provide training and opportunities for community members to build capacity to engage in a research partnership. There are special skills and sensibilities required for successful CBPR work. These include listening skills, communication using understandable and respectful language, group process, team development, negotiation, conflict resolution, and competency to operate in multicultural contexts. To this may be added the """"""""ability to be self-reflective and admit mistakes, capacity to operate within different power structures, and humility""""""""?^18?). Training for research and community partners will be most valuable if conducted in concert so the partners are exposed to. and participate in the training process with each other. This is one method for building bridges across universities and communities. The first part of the Training Core's specific aim is to develop and institutionalize this capacity-building infrastructure. This will occur in two ways: i) through a monthly seminar and lecture series and 2) through a quarterly """"""""CBPR on the road"""""""" series.
Showing the most recent 10 out of 11 publications
