Research as Relationship: Building Trust and Responsiveness in Community Engagement for Co-created Studies of School Foods

Join the Lawson Centre for Child Nutrition and the Leong Centre for Healthy Children for a Community Engagement webinar focused on building and sustaining community partnerships. 

Community partnerships are built through relational groundwork, collaborative decision-making frameworks, and reflexive practice at all stages in iterative cycles of research activity. Drawing specific lessons and case examples from the recently completed Feeding Kids, Nourishing Minds (FKNM) school food initiative, the presenters will share key experiences of the “work before the work”: foundational relationship building, co-creating research processes, and establishing trust within community spaces. We will examine strategies to sustain community engagement while navigating tensions in shared decision-making across study contexts. Participants will gain practical tools to align study design with community priorities and capacity, and information on how to authentically develop, maintain, and enhance research partnerships.

Learning Outcomes

Session participants will be able to:

1. Describe “Work before the work” strategies, including foundational “anchor” relationships, pilot testing, and co-creation processes that build credibility and feasibility prior to launch.

2. Identify strategies used to adapt engagement and study methods in response to community context, including how to diversify your study strategies and offer flexibility.

3. Recognize practical examples of maintaining methodological rigor and transparency about research capacity and limitations.

4. Discuss principles of humble and transparent practices for decision-making with community partners, including aligning priorities or capacity, and knowing when to pivot, defer, or redesign work to protect trust and support future collaboration.

Register Here: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/o8oMl63iR7-0dfPn-d4c8w