Tag Archives: CBPR

What is the real product here?

I was recently talking with a friend about my community conversation series. She told me that the real value in the sessions was in the data produced. I was shocked! Do community conversations produce data?

I have to say; this ruffled my feathers. The intention behind the session was always one of self expression, forming or reinforcing connections between people, fostering healing and resilience, and building community. If they were intended for data collection, I would have instituted a consent process and considered inviting ethical review. Data collection has a very different connotation in my field, and these are community based advocacy, not focus groups!

But I’ve been ruminating further on her words. Coming out of these sessions, there’s a clearer sense of what people are experiencing, how they are coping and what kinds of resources would be helpful to better support them at this time. And honestly, for any group that knows that some members are suffering, these are important outputs.

Are they data? No. Insights? No. Traditionally, they are none of these things. But they do provide valuable and necessary information that can be built upon to build better support systems and structures.

I’ve heard anecdotally from many groups of people affected by the sweeping government changes that they want to know what’s going on with their members and how to support them. I honestly believe that these community conversations are the answer to that; allowing both an opportunity to support people and an opportunity to explore a path forward through the chaos.

The value is on both one-off sessions and in repeated sessions within the same community. My mission is to build them in such a way that groups and people can benefit. It’s a slow process, as I figure out how to meet people where they are, and I’m always open to advice or interest!

Interesting in joining a session or getting involved?

Here is the mailing list:

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfrIlrlCJzm5E4ahoR_JOh6E-KaB1nbGyJ2SmdQqKL99JHrOQ/viewform?usp=sharing&ouid=114493619372705360657

Here is the next online session:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/1382445414449?aff=oddtdtcreator

Navigating Career Changes from the Inside Out

Years ago on this blog, I wrote about approaching career changes from the inside out. I had accomplished the biggest career change of my life that way, by following my passions with my books, talks and extra research sessions and then blogging about them here.

Last week at the annual AAPOR conference in St Louis, an attendee in a session about Navigating Career Change asked about feeling unsatisfied with their work. This is a common motivation for switching jobs, but I chimed in from the audience as a voice of caution.

“I think about it like an unscratched itch,” I advised. “Maybe there is some part of you that your work life isn’t satisfying. But this is a horrible time to switch jobs so I advise you instead to find other ways to scratch that itch. You may still decide you’re ready for a change, but if, for example, you decide that you really do need your job to offer more space for creativity, you now have recent experiences to speak to as examples of you pursuing your creative endeavors.”

We expect our jobs to be our calling, our everything. And we give them everything. But we are so many things, and we need to exist beyond our work.

I’m at another point of career change. After nearly 30 years of working in my career- with the longest break being 3 weeks of maternity leave, I’ve lost my job as a government contractor as part of the deep federal cuts. I could look directly for another position, but I want to take my time with it. We only live once, and I want to take inventory of all of my itches before deciding how to scratch.

I want to build out this Community Conversations initiative, but I want to be thoughtful about it. I’m not trying to recreate what others have done, so much as build something new that fits our current needs. This requires intuition, reflection, patience, resilience, and determination. It means that some days are among the most fulfilling of my life, hosting cathartic community sessions or having really inspiring conversations with friends and colleagues, and some days I wonder why I’m adrift instead of staying on the career path.

This initiative was founded from the inside out, reflecting 

  1. my facilitation skills that I’ve learned through years of moderating, facilitating and community work, 
  2. my passion for building mental health that was cultivated through voices like Iyanla Vanzant, Pema Chodron, Rachel Cargle and the Nap Ministry,
  3. my profound interest in community based participatory research and the principles that guide it, and
  4. my love of strategic conversations, brainstorming and forming new ways to approach problems.

Forming an initiative from the inside out means that guiding our next steps is a continual process of self reflection. This means that a day spent at one of my favorite art galleries, taking pictures that I may able to use for an exhibit of my own one day, getting lost in the woods on its campus and finding new ways to engage with my surroundings is just as important as a day spent documenting the plan for the initiative, including the financial and communication aspects.

I always imagined my life in chapters, with a later chapter as a more wholeheartedly creative era. And I love the creativity I’m feeling now! But a change so dramatic as this requires some careful stewardship and navigation.

I’m not really sure where any of this is headed, but I’m confident that just as when I recreated my life before, these steps will lead me in the right direction. Because I’m scratching my itches!

Have you navigated big changes like this? Do you have unscratched itches? Do you have any advice or resources to offer? Please comment! Let’s continue the conversation.

Picture taken by me, in the grounds of the Glenstone Museum in Potomac, MD 5/22/2025

Something to believe in

At the beginning of Life of Pi, the main character says he has a story to make you believe in God. Does he? I suppose that depends on your belief system, but the story made for a great book and a gorgeous movie.

I am not someone who believed that things happen for a reason. It might have been true, but the potential truth of it offered no comfort to me. But this year has shaken my doubt. Let me tell you my story.

You know me as a researcher, fundamentally and to my core. I’ve been working in research since 1996, and it has been an adventure, a challenge, and a great love. I’ve had the pleasure of working on fMRI research in its early days, working in Neuropsychology departments at fantastic hospitals, getting to know the nonprofit space, doing research on and in the global and academic Physics and Astronomy communities, doing Usability studies in people’s homes and using eye tracking tools, working across a number of languages on study recruitment materials, working in HIV prevention and treatment, evaluating health communications materials and working with communities to cocreate research studies that serve them.

Oh, the places research can take you! The interest work! The amazing people I’ve met along the way!

This year, things began to change pretty dramatically for the research community around me. We’ve been seeing respected professionals and institutional studies let go and dismissed on a massive scale.

We all want to help support each other and the field in some way, but we’re being stripped of our collective voice. I began to obsess over what I could uniquely offer to help. For a solid week, the topic was omnipresent for me. I thought immediately of the community conversations I’ve led occasionally with my church community. But what could these conversations look like? The answer came in flashes from every corner of my memory. Things strung together in a way I never could have imagined prior.

I’m hearing about the stress and distress we’re suffering through, and I thought of the grounding activities I’ve honed with someone very close to me who’s been battling severe anxiety and depression. I thought of the community gatherings that Iyanla Vanzant used to host on Saturday mornings and the grounding exercises she taught. I thought of my love of meditation and the methods that have been useful to me. I thought of the Nap Ministry and the idea of restoring people to their optimum humanity. I thought of Rachel Cargle and Adrienne Marie Brown and their teaching about the importance of imagination and play.

I wanted to use my qualitative research skills, experience with facilitation, and these principles to create something new, grounded in principles of Community Based Participatory Research.

The goal is to create a space for people to listen and be heard, to heal and to learn healing skills, to dream of a different future and to understand what the community needs and how the community can best support each other. The sessions can be singular for a group or they can become a community building and nurturing series for that group.

I began collecting resources and developed a resource sheet for participants, and I developed a discussion guide that asked few questions and allowed mostly for listening, discussion, and progressive relaxation. These resources are intended to be flexible enough to work with any group.

The next step was to find communities who were interested. To date, I have conducted groups with my church community and a local professional group. The groups blew my mind. People entered with strong emotions, listened and supported each other, relaxed to the point of smiling and laughing and spoke about supporting each other and building community. The groups were very different from each other, each becoming what it needed to be. One group opted to make this into a series, with a second session planned for later this month. The other left me with a full page of ideaa that our professional councils can bring to fruition.

As the communities around me are increasingly affected, I’ve wanted to focus on expanding- but it’s been difficult to balance with a full time, intense job. Well, dear readers, after seeing the last of my clients RIF’d last week I was laid off this week. For me, this was a gift, because this community conversation series is my passion and my purpose.

In the coming weeks, I’m going to focus on ways to find more groups to facilitate, online and in-person. I’m working on designs as well, to raise funds for the project in some kind of way.

How can you help? If you’re interested, you’re welcome. I need support in locating and planning groups, developing a funding strategy and a plan for the merch. Let’s work together to build community, restore peace and purpose, and support and listen to each other.

Thank you for listening ❤️

“All that you touch
You Change.

All that you Change
Changes you.

The only lasting truth
is Change.

God
is Change.”


Octavia E. Butler