I-CREAte: Engaging Families to Build Healthy Communities: Building a Community led action plan

Context: Using community-based participatory methods, the I-CREAte (Innovations for Community Resilience, Equity and Advocacy) team conducted a multiple case study exploring the lived experiences of families experiencing adversity. Through thematic analysis, twelve themes were retained which significantly impacted families’ and communities’ experience of resilience. Phase two of this study sought to use these themes to develop a community action plan to inform future research, program and policy making.

Objectives: (1) To empower community members and partners to identify solutions for challenges that limit family and community resilience. (2) To develop a community driven action plan providing information for community members, organizations, and different levels of government to support implementation of programs aligned with community identified priorities.

Study Design and Analysis: Community engagement meetings were conducted using participatory activities: world cafe, group prioritization, and facilitated group reflection. Findings were compiled in a participatory qualitative data analysis process with the I-CREAte community research team. Results were validated with I-CREAte community advisory board.

Setting and Population: Kingston, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington counties in Ontario, Canada. Eleven community engagement meetings with different stakeholders, including community members with different identities (racialized newcomers, people who were unhoused or used substances, youth, seniors, low income community) and with service providers from partner organizations (the municipality, organizations providing services to youth, to people using substances, etc)

Results: Proposed solutions were organized around key themes (eg. housing, building community, substance use services) as well as with a lens to specific audiences (community members, service organizations, municipal government, other levels of government and policy makers). Findings were compiled into a searchable database, and different knowledge mobilizations tools were used to share findings with relevant audiences.

Conclusions: Ensuring community, service providers, and government are involved at all stages of the research process dramatically improves the likelihood that these groups will be interested in the findings of the research and will be willing to consider uptake of recommendations and support of future projects to determine best practices to meeting community needs.