The Community Based Research Program from 2004-08
- The Community Based Research Capacity Building Program
- The Meaning of Community Based Research
- What Is Community Based Research?
- What are the benefits of Community Based Research?
- What is Capacity-Building in Community Based Research?
- AIDS Service Organizations
- GOOD EATS! 2008 (Podcast)
- 2006 Evaluation
- 2004 Environmental Scan
THE COMMUNITY BASED RESEARCH CAPACITY BUILDING PROGRAM
In Community Based Research also referredto as CBR, people living with HIV/AIDS are becoming active collaborators in research that matters to their lives. BC’s Community Based Research (CBR) program for HIV/AIDS 2004 – 2008 is hosted at the BC Persons With AIDS Society and funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). The program is directed by a Community Based Research Facilitator (CBRF), Dr. Francisco Ibanez-Carrasco. The CBR program supports BC HIV/AIDS community organizations in a number of aspects of their research such as funding, implementation, innovative dissemination of findings, and evidence-based integration of results into your programming and policy. This capacity building program is available to your organization at no cost.
For more information about Community Based Research,
Contact: Terry Howard
Phone: 604.893.2281
Email: terryh@bcpwa.org
CBR Resources: www.hiv-cbr.net
THE MEANING OF COMMUNITY BASED RESEARCH
Why do we engage in research?
- To advance new knowledge.
- To organize new and existing knowledge about people (and organizations) in systematic ways.
- To confirm, legitimate, and validate what we already know through anecdotal information (best practices, behavioral patterns, tradition, organizational history, and even gossip); reinventing the wheel may also be good research.
- To re-present this knowledge and methods to others in ways that make sense to us and to others.
WHAT IS COMMUNITY BASED RESEARCH?
- CBR in HIV/AIDS is a participatory and democratic approach to conventional research that places people living with HIV (PWAs/PHAs) at the centre of its strategy.
- It is as rigorous and ethical as conventional research.
- In CBR, PWAs are not the “subjects” of research; they are active participants in the process from identifying the research questions to collecting and analyzing data to reporting and applying the results.
- CBR may include ownership of research process and results; it makes the researchers accountable and the research transparent.
WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF COMMUNITY BASED RESEARCH?
- CBR supports our programming and funding needs with evidence-based results through advocacy and action research.
- CBR provides information that is directly useful to the community in which it takes place.
- CBR enhances credibility and an organization’s public profile.
- CBR brings in research dollars.
- CBR strengthens existing partnerships and creates new and equitable partnerships.
WHAT IS CAPACITY-BUILDING IN COMMUNITY BASED RESEARCH?
- It is a long-term democratic educational process in which all participants learn collaboratively about CBR and enhance their potential to carry out CBR-lived experience is as important as expertise.
- It consists of workshops, networking/communications, and hands-on research collaboration.
AIDS SERVICE ORGANIZATIONS
On October 23, 2008, the Pacific AIDS Network (PAN) and the BCPWA Community Based Research Program hosted a Breakfast Interactive Cafe© for nearly 70 PWAs, AIDS Service Organization (ASO) staff, volunteers, and Public Health representatives. Cheryl Dowden from ANKORS in the Kootenays, Rick Kennedy from the Ontario AIDS Network (OAN) and Moffatt Clarke from the Public Health Agency of Canada jumpstarted a town hall meeting. There was some resistance to imagine ourselves ten years from now. Does this mean that it will be business as usual, denial, or that we do not see ASOs or an HIV movement in the future? This cafe© left us with more questions than answers. Read more in Issue 59 of Living Positive Magazine on the BCPWA site.
Video team: Emily MacKinnon, Adam Reibin, Dena Ellery and John Bishop.
GOOD EATS! 2008
What is it? , What happened? & Who participated?
Was a participatory workshop series about food security in the context of HIV in the Downtown East Side of Vancouver (DTES). After a community mapping meeting with stakeholders on March 19th, 2008 a series of 10 workshops with DTES HIV+ participants generated much knowledge. Participants and facilitators engaged in open and frank guided conversations and mapping of the DTES what, where and how is possible to find sustenance in the area and related issues (e.g. nutritional value, cost, etc.). The participants who were offered a gradually ascendant stipend scale also cooked fresh, inexpensive and highly nutritional meals with local nutritionists and community based cooks and sat to eat as a group. Also, they visited the Quest food exchange www.questoutreach.org, a community garden and a local non-commercial radio show in Coop radio. The group dynamics of a widely varied number of people from rough paths of life attending the Good Eats! workshops was successful; this shows that food is a great socializing agent. To close the series, a final stakeholders/participants meeting was scheduled for June 2008 at the LifeSkills Centre.
What we found out?
Some preliminary findings: women and transgendered persons male to female living with HIV seem to be able to find more food resources available and less sleeping/shelter resources than men. When food is available, participants often do not have the basic facilities to cook and refrigerate/freeze. Individually, eating is difficult to organize in the presence of drug use or poor health conditions (e.g. lack of teeth). The nutrition value per se may take a second place to personal preferences such as convenience of location, how well a person is treated in a free food delivery place, and the value of comfort food (the emotional component of food). Tellingly, one participant told us “they say one cannot live on bread and water, but we do in the DTESâ€. In many ways, HIV+ persons in the DTES behave much like any regular “consumer†even if there is a cultural expectation that they behave as docile charity recipients. When there is money, HIV+ persons do use low-paid food places that offer good choices. When there is no money to buy food, stealing, “binning†and lining up for food is necessary, sometimes in places where they are “red zoned†by the local police and pulled from the queue if identified. “Binning†is good when food outlets (especially upscale ones) turn a blind eye to city regulations and pack expensive leftovers and leave them strategically to be picked up. Participants identified a few faith-based places they must pray for their meal; coercion may still be a part of social food delivery. Also, participants told us that if they had a chance, most of them would rather work for their food either legally or under the table.
Who worked on this project?
Our Community Based Research (CBR) team: Shane Turner, the LifeSkills Centre Coordinator, Christiana Miewald, Food Researcher at SFU, Tanya Palazzo, Volunteer BCPWA (podcasts and notes) and Francisco Ibáñez-Carrasco HIV/AIDS Community Based Research Facilitator (BCPWA). This activity is funded through in-kind work of volunteers, the CBR program, the Centre for Sustainable Community Development at SFU and a Community Based Research grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
For feedback or questions, please contact Christiana Miewald at cmiewald@sfu.ca (SFU) or 604-469-9386 or Francisco at Francisco@bcpwa.org (BCPWA) at (604) 893 2281.
| Title: #1 – “The Hastings Shuffle” |  |
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Date: Spring 2008
Location: Vancouver, Downtown East Side (DTES)
Summary: GOOD EATS! 2008 #1 – “The Hastings Shuffle”
To listen now, just click the play button on the player below (in some web browsers you may have to click twice to start playback), or to download the podcast to to listen to later, right click here,
select “Save Target As…” (if using Internet Explorer) or “Save Link As…” (if using Mozilla FireFox).
| Title: #2 – “The Good The Bad and The Ugly” | |
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Date: Spring 2008
Location: Vancouver, Downtown East Side (DTES)
Summary: GOOD EATS! 2008 #2 – Downtown East Side Paces where to get food, “The Good The Bad and The Ugly”
To listen now, just click the play button on the player below (in some web browsers you may have to click twice to start playback), or to download the podcast to to listen to later, right click here,
select “Save Target As…”(if using Internet Explorer) or “Save Link As…”(if using Mozilla FireFox).
| Title: #3 – “Ideal Menus” | |
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Date: Spring 2008
Location: Vancouver, Downtown East Side (DTES)
Summary: GOOD EATS! 2008 #3 – “Ideal Menus”
To listen now, just click the play button on the player below (in some web browsers you may have to click twice to start playback), or to download the podcast to to listen to later, right click here,
select “Save Target As…”(if using Internet Explorer) or “Save Link As…”(if using Mozilla FireFox).
| Title: #4 – “Food as Dignity” | |
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Date: Spring 2008
Location: Vancouver, Downtown East Side (DTES)
Summary: GOOD EATS! 2008 #4 – “Food as Dignity”
To listen now, just click the play button on the player below (in some web browsers you may have to click twice to start playback), or to download the podcast to to listen to later, right click here,
select “Save Target As…” (if using Internet Explorer) or “Save Link As…” (if using Mozilla FireFox).
| Title: #5 – “Food Banks” | |
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Date: Spring 2008
Location: Vancouver, Downtown East Side (DTES)
Summary: GOOD EATS! 2008 #5 – “Food Banks”
To listen now, just click the play button on the player below (in some web browsers you may have to click twice to start playback), or to download the podcast to to listen to later, right click here,
select “Save Target As…” (if using Internet Explorer) or “Save Link As…” (if using Mozilla FireFox).
| Title: #6 – “Group Learned” | |
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Date: Spring 2008
Location: Vancouver, Downtown East Side (DTES)
Summary: GOOD EATS! 2008 #6 – “Group Learned”
To listen now, just click the play button on the player below (in some web browsers you may have to click twice to start playback), or to download the podcast to to listen to later, right click here,
select “Save Target As…” (if using Internet Explorer) or “Save Link As…” (if using Mozilla FireFox).
| Title: #7 – “Line Ups” | |
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Date: Spring 2008
Location: Vancouver, Downtown East Side (DTES)
Summary: GOOD EATS! 2008 #7 – “Line Ups”
To listen now, just click the play button on the player below (in some web browsers you may have to click twice to start playback), or to download the podcast to to listen to later, right click here,
select “Save Target As…” (if using Internet Explorer) or “Save Link As…” (if using Mozilla FireFox).
| Title: #8 – “Stores in the Down Town East Side (DTES)” | |
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Date: Spring 2008
Location: Vancouver, Downtown East Side (DTES)
Summary: GOOD EATS! 2008 #8 – “Stores in the Down Town East Side”
To listen now, just click the play button on the player below (in some web browsers you may have to click twice to start playback), or to download the podcast to to listen to later, right click here,
select “Save Target As…” (if using Internet Explorer) or “Save Link As…” (if using Mozilla FireFox).
| Title: #9 – “Waste of a Life” | |
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Date: Spring 2008
Location: Vancouver, Downtown East Side (DTES)
Summary: GOOD EATS! 2008 #9 – “Waste of a Life”
To listen now, just click the play button on the player below (in some web browsers you may have to click twice to start playback), or to download the podcast to to listen to later, right click here,
select “Save Target As…” (if using Internet Explorer) or “Save Link As…” (if using Mozilla FireFox).
| Title: #10 – “Work For Food” | |
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Date: Spring 2008
Location: Vancouver, Downtown East Side (DTES)
Summary: GOOD EATS! 2008 #10 – “Work For Food”
To listen now, just click the play button on the player below (in some web browsers you may have to click twice to start playback), or to download the podcast to to listen to later, right click here,
select “Save Target As…” (if using Internet Explorer) or “Save Link As…” (if using Mozilla FireFox).
| Title: CFRO-Good_Eats_2008 (All-In-One) | |
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Date: 2008 Workshop serious of Living with HIV In the Downtown East side of Vancouver ,BC.
Location: Vancouver, Downtown East Side (DTES)
Summary: GOOD EATS! 2008 was a participatory workshop series about food security in the context of HIV in the Downtown East Side of Vancouver (DTES).
To listen now, just click the play button on the player below (in some web browsers you may have to click twice to start playback), or to download the podcast to to listen to later, right click here,
select “Save Target As…” (if using Internet Explorer) or “Save Link As…” (if using Mozilla FireFox).
2006 EVALUATION
Capacity for Change reports the feedback from regional stakeholders and provides recommendations. It also describes the community based research collaborations across the province in case studies.
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2004 ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN
CBR: Luxury or Necessity 2004 describes the capacity building needs, existing capacities and challenges in the province. The purpose of the scan is to assess the capacity of community-based organizations to engage successfully in community-based research and evaluation initiatives.
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