Houston – we have inspiration! by Ceri Davies

Well, I’m back in the UK and letting the experience of the last few days settle in.  As I reflect on a full, committed and diverse conference, I wanted to share a few thoughts/bits of information from the CCPH conference.

I participated in conference sessions ranging from conversations that transform partnerships to desigining and using indigenous research methods – the common thread being how all of these contributions can be drawn together and explored under a more explicit mission of pursuing social justice.  Many of us think we are engaged in it, but perhaps we need to put it out there a bit more and really critically consider how our work contributes to this goal… The conference certainly set an agenda for the movement of community-university partnerships (for health) drawing together to do just this.

The conference was predominantly attended by people based and working in the USA and I came away with a sense that the movement here is radical and challenging – positioning these efforts really clearly within a framework of transformative change.  People were keen to locate themselves in the debate and acknowledge our collective experiences, wisdoms, knowledges and lives that may have a part to play in making community-university partnesrhip work.  People were keen to give particular primacy to community partners – being networked, visible and vocal, something that is now being worked on in the UK (see: http://www.publicengagement.ac.uk/news-and-events/events/uk-communi… ) The energy that participants brought sustained us all across 3 long days of presentations, posters, visits, forums and chats over food!

But what better way to bring reality into the rhetoric, than with a visit to a local community project, working in partnership with academia to understand the impact, potential and necessity of this work.  A small group of us went to Baker-Ripley Neighbourhood Centre in the Gulfton & Sharpstown neighbourhood of Houston.  Neighbourhood Centers Inc locate resources, services and educational opportunities in areas to emerging areas in the Texas Gulf Coast and exist to enable individuals and communities to achieve their potential: (www.neighbourhood-centers.org for more information).  The services and resources delivered by this centre are a direct response to the local community from primary education to a credit union and they have just started a community gardening project; in part because many of their community live in apartments without any outside space.  This got me thinking about the work happening here at the University of Brighton, using campus green space for allotment beds.  The metaphor of plants is a useful one when I think about partnership – starting small, feeding them to grow, tending and caring – the work of individuals for a wider benefit.

But the centre also had some fantastic ideas for sharing resources/space/opportunities that might be transferrable to a university institutional context  E.g. they had a projection screen on the side of a building and once a month they screen a film, they had an arts studio that local people can take up a residency in for 6-12 months and then hold art fairs to showcase their work.

Overall, the bits that really stuck with me are:

– ‘Strengths based practice’ – colleagues from University of Newcastle, Australia talked about any questions being asked in two ways, and just as we might understand and strive for an asset, rather than a deficit based approach to communities; we can apply similar principles to research, institutions and partnership practice.  The presenters talked about gifts of the heart (what you care about), hand (what you can do), head (what you know) and heel (what keeps you grounded) that should be considered when working together.

– whether we really need categorisations (e.g. continually distinguishing between community partner and university partner) although they are helpful, they also miss much.  Part of me thinks this is important, part of me wonders why it matters.

– the place of creativity in our work, sparked through the performance of El Teatro (see blog ‘Houston, CCPH has landed!)

– the fact that in the UK we often have a broad view of our partnership work and a lot of it is focused on brokerage compared with the very specific focus of many other conference participants that often includes some service delivery (e.g. primary care in response to the fact that many don’t have health insurance).  However, I did meet Betty Kaiser and Gibril JarJue from University of Wisconsin-Madison, who have a community panel who read, review and suggest alternative understandings/communication for research and research findings which struck me as innovative and specific way to connect the university and community.

– The scale and size of the task and it’s response in the USA is enormous compared to UK based work.  What lessons are there in their for the UK?

So, this was a conference about social justice issues, how we might mobilise and inspire, demonstrate and celebrate, connect, shape and transform partnerships by connecting up people from all over the world.  The content of the conference was much about how we might actually achieve some of these goals.  More will emerge from my brain over the coming days I’m sure but the quote of the conference for me and an intention and inspiration for me going forward was from Susan Gust (Immediate Past Chair, CCPH Board of Directors) who said of working in community-university partnership:

‘My capacity wasn’t built, it was acknowledged’

Slides/copies of presentations from the conference can be found here: http://bit.ly.hFPPlr

photos here: http://on.fb.me/jn0tW2

Tweets here: http://twitter.com/ccphconference