By Martin Ojeda, Staff Research Associate, “Stronger Together, Community-Engaged Research in the San Joaquin Valley” Luce Foundation Grant, UC Merced
This past fall, the Hlub Hmong Center Program Director, Tsia Xiong, came to UC Merced for the second time to give a workshop on building and sustaining relationships in community-engaged research. The purpose of the workshop was to train faculty members and graduate students on maintaining and growing relationships with community members.
Participants learned about four key steps to developing sustainable community relationships: maintaining, proposing, agitating, and celebrating/assessing. The workshop included hands-on activities such as a role-playing session and worksheets meant to track your intentions for developing relationships with community members. During the role play, participants partnered with others to find common interests and suggested roles they would like each other to fill based on their common interests. During the workshop, Tsia offered three main tips for navigating the four steps listed above.
Tsia’s first tip for maintaining a relationship when conducting community-engaged research is having intentional one-on-one meetings. Tsia highlighted two key steps to consider before the meeting. The first is to reflect on the purpose of the meeting and what motivates you to meet with that person. The second is to list some actions and goals you want to reach. Knowing the purpose and the goal of the meeting is what makes the meeting intentional and clear to the person you are meeting with. Ultimately, one-on-ones show whether you and the other person can find a common goal and whether the person would be interested in investing their time with you.
The second tip that Tsia gave is that proposals need to be relational, meaning your partnership is built on mutual understanding and agreement. We create an effective proposal when we invite our partner to embrace a bigger role rather than simply assigning it. This can be accomplished by discussing why the new role matters, how someone’s skills can improve outcomes, and giving them space to reflect on how they feel and to provide feedback.
The third tip Tsia gave for the agitational phase is the need to be bold when assessing outcomes with your community partner. Tsia explained that the purpose of agitation is to raise awareness of shortcomings and give your community partner time to self-reflect. Boldness is necessary during this phase as the purpose of the conversation is to ask probing questions and recognize contradictions. Recognizing the gap between a set goal and realized results can be uncomfortable for both parties involved. Because of the risky nature of the agitational phase, Tsia emphasizes reiterating the importance of talents, and how the two of you can work together going forward.
The workshop underlined the importance of connecting and sustaining the relationship between researchers and community partners. Tsia equipped the audience with the tools required for effective relationship building and getting community partner buy-in. Overall, the tools given by Tsia can be helpful for developing an effective community-engaged relationship because they ensure mutually beneficial outcomes for both parties by having clear goals, mutual agreement, and honest conversations about outcomes.
