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Worldwide, many children live in the street; equally so in the East of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where this phenomenon is seemingly connected to recurring armed conflicts. Yet, the role of war in children's motives to join the street remains unknown. A total of 102 youths (12–18 years) were interviewed in Bunia by community researchers (i.e. former street children). Motives related to armed conflicts (e.g. rebel attacks) played an important role in children's decisions to join the street, next to non-war-related motives (e.g. poverty, familial changes). Most children indicated a chronological chain of multiple motives, mostly starting with war-related motives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Community leaders in Colombia have historically suffered processes of microaggressions and intimidation that threaten the free exercise of their voice in the processes of production of knowledge and in the participation of the planning of their territories. In this article, we explore the case study of the Network of Community Researchers (NCR), also known in Spanish as Red de Investigadores Comunitarios, promoted by the University of Antioquia, Colombia. The NCR is a commitment to the co-production of knowledge about human security from below between community researchers and academics. This article analyses the contribution of the NCR to the human security of Medellin and a specific collection of capabilities for epistemic liberation of community researchers: the capability to be recognised as a producer of valid knowledge, to do through communicative openness, to learn from collective knowledge and to transform through collective action. The expansion of these four capabilities evidence processes of resistance and hermeneutic insurrection of some community leaders and activists who participate in the NCR. The analysis shows the contribution of the NCR to facilitate and generate a safe space in which community researchers communicate knowledge and practices and share experiences, risks, struggles, fears and collective dreams of transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the importance of community researchers has long been acknowledged in disability studies, inclusive research practices such as these are less common in research about another marginalised group: people who are in prison or have spent time in prison. Over the past decade in Australia, the number and rate of people imprisoned has risen rapidly, and recidivism rates remain high, indicating a need for improved services. In this article, we draw on methodological reflections from two case studies on research with marginalised communities, one in disability studies and one in post-prison research. We apply insights from disability research to argue the importance of incorporating community researchers in qualitative research projects seeking to explore the experiences of people involved with the criminal justice system, such as people who have been released from prison. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This project employed community researchers as a means of improving community engagement around their Private Water Supplies (PWS) in rural Scotland. In this paper, we reflect on working with community researchers in terms of the benefits and challenges of the approach for future rural research that seeks to improve community engagement. The paper (1) critiques the involvement of community researchers for rural community engagement, drawing on the experiences in this project and (2) provides suggestions for good practice for working with community researchers in rural communities' research. We offer some context in terms of the role of community members in research, the importance of PWS, our approach to community researchers, followed by the methodological approach and findings and our conclusions to highlight that community researchers can be beneficial for enhancing community engagement, employability, and social capital. Future community researcher approaches need to be fully funded to ensure core researchers can fulfil their duty of care, which should not stop when data collection is finished. Community researchers need to be supported in two main ways: as continuing faces of the project after the official project end date and to transfer their newly acquired skills to future employment opportunities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This data paper presents a survey conducted in a participatory manner in the territory of Santarém, in the Brazilian Amazon. The aim is to understand how global changes are affecting family farmers. In the study area, family farming has been confronted over the past 20 years with the rapid expansion of large-scale monocultures, especially soybean. As part of the Odyssea socio-environmental observatory, academic researchers and family farming organizations entered into a partnership to co-produce data that could be strategically useful for these organizations. A process of co-construction of the expectations allowed priorities to be established and the data collection strategy to be defined. Three levels of analysis were chosen in order to allow an integrated understanding of the dynamics of change: the Santarem Plateau territory, the rural community level (living place recognized by the farmers) and the farmers' households. Twenty-one farmers, called community researchers, organized in 3 teams, applied a questionnaire through the KoboCollect smartphone application to 544 families in the municipalities of Santarém, Mojuí dos Campos and Belterra. Meetings were previously held in the rural communities and questionnaires were applied with representatives of 32 communities. Data was collected between April and June 2019. The community researchers and academic researchers then came together for two collective sessions of data analysis and interpretation in July and October 2019. Data was standardized and cleaned using SPSS software, between September and December 2019. The metadata and databases are available on the CIRAD dataverse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the importance of community researchers has long been acknowledged in disability studies, inclusive research practices such as these are less common in research about another marginalised group: people who are in prison or have spent time in prison. Over the past decade in Australia, the number and rate of people imprisoned has risen rapidly, and recidivism rates remain high, indicating a need for improved services. In this article, we draw on methodological reflections from two case studies on research with marginalised communities, one in disability studies and one in post-prison research. We apply insights from disability research to argue the importance of incorporating community researchers in qualitative research projects seeking to explore the experiences of people involved with the criminal justice system, such as people who have been released from prison.

This paper draws on conversations between a group of research associates who worked on a large-scale co-produced research project, Productive Margins: Regulating for Engagement. Through our conversations and subsequent analysis, three themes emerged regarding our experiences working on the project: (1) Working across difference; (2) Engaging with arts practice; and (3) Creating the conditions for co-production. This paper reflects on these themes, and we suggest that there is a need to focus on and explore the processes of co-producing research in terms of pragmatics and epistemology.

Plain summary This article examines the overall experiences of community researchers in their involvement with the ‘PROMPT’ project for smoking cessation, which targeted community members who were homeless or at-risk for homelessness. More specifically, four community members, representing the study population were involved in the project as researchers. They were asked to complete surveys at both the beginning and end of each research training session to better understand their learning as it related to using a key instrument for this project, a spirometer, to measure project participants’ lung function. Spirometry is typically performed by trained healthcare providers. Community researchers were also interviewed to explore what their experiences were like working as a researcher with their own at-risk community. Although the researchers felt that the training was sufficient, more research is needed to evaluate training effectiveness among community researchers in delivering acceptable quality lung function testing using a spirometer. Upon analyzing the small group discussion and survey results, we found that the community researchers had an overall positive experience with both the project, and the training that was provided to equip them with the knowledge, tools, and resources they needed to successfully work in a research project of this kind. They also faced challenges that are common in such community-based projects, such as the power differential between the researchers with a healthcare background and themselves who have lived experience with the issue at hand. Abstract Background The Ottawa Citizen Engagement and Action Model (OCEAM) used a Community Based Participatory Action Research (CBPAR) approach by involving the most at-risk urban population. Community (peer) researchers participated in every step of the study despite the multiple challenges. Objective To assess the community researchers’ training and experiences in a CBPAR project, PROMPT: Participatory Research in Ottawa: Management and Point-of-care for Tobacco Dependence. Method Four community researchers were recruited, representative of the PROMPT project’s target population with current or past poly-substance use; smoking tobacco; and/or being homeless or at-risk for homelessness. The community researchers participated in all phases of PROMPT, including study design, development of questionnaires, participant recruitment, administering consent forms and questionnaires, as well as hand-held spirometry after rigorous training. To assess their knowledge and comfort level with spirometry testing after standardized training, questionnaires were administered pre- and post-training. In turn, to assess their overall experience, interviews were conducted at the end of study completion. Results All community researchers underwent small-group training sessions including presentations, discussions and hands-on practice adapted from standardized training material prepared for health care professionals. Spirometry training was included in all sessions. Self-perceived knowledge and confidence in administering spirometry, as well as skill-testing score averages improved between the pre- and post-training questionnaires. Overall, all the community researchers had a fulfilling experience participating in the project. Conclusion Despite challenges, involving community researchers with lived experience is feasible, satisfying and productive even in the most marginalized populations. Standardized spirometry training of community researchers’ representative of the PROMPT target population, with no healthcare educational background, was feasible and effective in improving knowledge, confidence and readiness to administer spirometry.

The purpose of the study was to synthesize a model for empoweringcommunity researchers using the participatory action research which involved four steps of plan, act, observe, and reflect. The data collection included interviews, group discussions, dialogs, and observations. There were 21 community researchers selected to be participants of the study based on the research criteria. The results of the model for empowering community researchers involved 4 main processes; 1) know yourself, 2) identify learning goals, 3) repeat and reflect, 4) find network, not work alone. The results of the empowering model suggested three changes were 1) ability to think powerfully, 2) have the potential to work collaboratively, 3) ability to transfer knowledge. The results of a model for empowering community researchers in this study are based on the participants who have basic knowledge and experiences in research. Thus, the individual or organization who would use the findings need to take into consideration about basic knowledge and experiences of the groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the study was to find out the processes for the development of community researchers from the model communities, where community researchers are developed or use research processes to solve community problems. The community was a part of the Participatory Action Research group for developing the model for empowering community researchers in Pak Phli district, Nakhon Nayok province. The researchers used quanlitative study to collect the primary data from Phraek Nam Daeng communities, Amphawa district, Samut Songkhram province using focus group discussions and in-depth interviews from community researcher developers’ and local researchers’ perspectives. The research also collected secondary data from related literature and research studies. The results showed that the nine steps model of community researcher development could be divided into three processes; 1) starting powerful thinking; 2) acting creatively; and 3) synthesizing and forwarding results. The model could develop researchers both individual and community level. The findings could be used for planning and identifying activities for empowering community researchers in Pak Phli. In addition, related organization could use the findings of this study to plan and propose policy of human development in the communities based on community contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research processes that are centered on western models and rooted in colonisation and racism can have deleterious effects upon disenfranchised groups, such as people of colour and indigenous communities. Community-centred and culturally-grounded processes are necessary to achieve meaningful participation and engagement in research by creating equitable protocols and ensuring beneficial outcomes. Such processes are particularly needed in indigenous populations, including the Hawaiian community. This article describes the participatory development of the community engagement protocols and rules of engagement created by a community and academic partnership called the Waimānalo Pono Research Hui (WPRH). Through monthly gatherings, academic and community partners engaged in discussions of constructing community programmes and developing research protocols that are rooted in Hawaiian wholistic values of health and well-being with indigenous methodologies. A final set of protocols and rules of engagement was developed through an iterative feedback process that was rooted not only in community-based participatory (CBPR) principles but also Hawaiian values, beliefs and way of life. Challenges and future directions are also presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: The West Coast Dungeness crab fishery is high‐risk for occupational fatalities. The Fishermen Led Injury Prevention Program (FLIPP) explored this worker population's nonfatal injuries and safety perspectives. Methods: Focus groups were held along the West Coast to (a) review reported injuries, (b) discuss risk factors, and (c) identify content to inform future FLIPP research activities, including survey development. Focus group data were transcribed and analyzed qualitatively. The FLIPP survey was pilot tested with groups of fishermen before broad distribution. Results: Nineteen fishermen participated in focus groups and 21 pilot tested the FLIPP survey. These discussions illuminated injury risk perceptions, crews' current safety provisions, and what survey items would be relevant for fishermen. Conclusion: To engage fishermen in the process of identifying and developing injury prevention efforts, focus groups, and pilot testing were effective methods for incorporating their ideas into a survey. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To examine the contribution of student co-researchers to a community-based participatory Photovoice investigation of Indigenous children's food-related lived experience. We examine co-researchers’ contributions to the research process, their role in knowledge co-generation and dissemination, and factors that fostered research partnership with the teenage co-researchers. Methods: High school students attending a First Nation community school in Canada were trained as research partners. They contributed to aspects of research design, conducted interviews with grades 3 and 4 Photovoice participants, and participated in data analysis and the development of a culturally relevant photobook. The study was initiated by the community's research committee. It is informed by critical consciousness theory and the positive youth development framework. Results: Student co-researchers incorporated culturally appropriate strategies as they interviewed participants. Co-researchers adopted conversational approaches, built rapport by articulating personal and cultural connections, and engaged in mentoring and health promotion as they interviewed participants. They made critical contributions to dissemination by developing photobook content that promoted the importance of traditional foods and the vital role of family and community in healthy eating practices. Relationships and “dialogic” space were important to building partnership with and promoting capacity development among youth co-researchers. Conclusions: Partnership between university researchers and Indigenous student co-researchers holds great promise for health promotion in communities. Co-researchers developed research and leadership skills, gained understanding of health challenges facing their community, and initiated health and cultural promotion through the project's Photobook. This investigation supports the powerful potential of student co-researchers to meaningfully contribute to research processes and to build knowledge that is relevant and credible both within and outside of their communities. Findings have implications for youth, communities and researchers.

Community researchers are laypersons who conduct research activities in their own communities. In addiction and HIV research, community researchers are valued for their insider status and knowledge. At the same time, their presence on the research team raises concerns about coercion and confidentiality when community researchers and participants know each other personally, and the work of navigating between the worlds of research and community leads to moral distress and burnout for some community researchers. In this paper, we draw upon the concept of ‘moral experience’ to explore the local moral worlds of community researchers in the context of addiction research. In February and March 2010, we conducted focus groups with 36 community researchers employed on community-based addiction studies in the United States to elicit perspectives on ethical and moral challenges they face in their work and insights on best practices to support their role in research. Community researchers described how their values were realized or thwarted in the context of research, and their strategies for coping with shifting identities and competing priorities. They delineated how their knowledge could be used to inform development of research protocols and help principal investigators build and maintain trust with the community researchers on their teams. Our findings contribute to current understandings of the moral experiences of community members employed in research, and inform policies and practices for the growing field of community-engaged research. Funders, research organizations, and research ethics boards should develop guidelines and standards to ensure studies have key resources in place to support community researchers and ensure quality and integrity of community-engaged work. Investigators who work with community researchers should ensure channels for frontline staff to provide input on research protocols and to create an atmosphere where challenges and concerns can be openly and safely discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Wellness Engagement (WE) Project is an academic-community partnership developed to engage the community to inform the development of a pilot intervention aimed at promoting healthy eating and physical activity among residents of Petersburg, Virginia. Objectives: To implement House Chats as a novel methodology for engaging community members in focused discussion about obesity, exercise, dietary intake, and barriers to health. Methods: We recruited and trained laypersons as House Chat Leaders (HCLs) to host informal group discussions about obesity with members of their network in a social setting following predetermined questions. Results: HCLs hosted 34 House Chats with 176 participants over a period of 4 months. Conclusions: The House Chat proved to be a highly successful engagement strategy that allowed access to respondents who may not have participated in a traditional, focus group discussion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. To examine the contribution of student co-researchers to a community-based participatory Photovoice investigation of Indigenous children's food-related lived experience. We examine co-researchers’ contributions to the research process, their role in knowledge co-generation and dissemination, and factors that fostered research partnership with the teenage co-researchers. Methods. High school students attending a First Nation community school in Canada were trained as research partners. They contributed to aspects of research design, conducted interviews with grades 3 and 4 Photovoice participants, and participated in data analysis and the development of a culturally relevant photobook. The study was initiated by the community's research committee. It is informed by critical consciousness theory and the positive youth development framework. Results. Student co-researchers incorporated culturally appropriate strategies as they interviewed participants. Co-researchers adopted conversational approaches, built rapport by articulating personal and cultural connections, and engaged in mentoring and health promotion as they interviewed participants. They made critical contributions to dissemination by developing photobook content that promoted the importance of traditional foods and the vital role of family and community in healthy eating practices. Relationships and “dialogic” space were important to building partnership with and promoting capacity development among youth co-researchers. Conclusions. Partnership between university researchers and Indigenous student co-researchers holds great promise for health promotion in communities. Co-researchers developed research and leadership skills, gained understanding of health challenges facing their community, and initiated health and cultural promotion through the project's Photobook. This investigation supports the powerful potential of student co-researchers to meaningfully contribute to research processes and to build knowledge that is relevant and credible both within and outside of their communities. Findings have implications for youth, communities and researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The personal rewards and challenges experienced by community researchers are not well explored. Training laypersons to be engaged in some or all aspects of community-engaged research is becoming more common, highlighting the need to understand the challenges associated with this role. The complexities of this role are magnified when the layperson has multiple identities of overlap with the research participant. In this brief report, we explore the rewards and challenges reported by 8 cancer survivors and 2 cancer caregivers who conducted interviews with 32 other survivors, caregivers, and health care professionals. We report specifically on data from their exit interviews regarding the experience of being a community researcher conducting research on a subject matter that was very personal. Overall, being a community researcher was a rewarding experience that allowed them to reflect critically on their own personal path and cancer experiences. Importantly, this role provided them with insights in to cancer and other disparities in their community beyond their own situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research with people who are not fluent in the dominant language of the research endeavour often involves working with interpreters/ translators or researchers who can speak the relevant minority languages. They conduct the interviews and provide the written data used for analysis in a language other than the original. However, this kind of cross language research is often presented as if it is the analysis of primary data rather than the re-construction of it. We argue that analysis of cross language data shows some strong similarities with secondary data analysis. Questions about the relevance of the context in which data are produced are central to both cross language research and secondary qualitative data analysis. We illustrate our arguments using a research project that examined user views of interpreters and discuss how we dealt with the issue of context in analysing data that were collected by others and produced in languages we did not speak. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs0604107

Abstract: Lay persons who are trained to conduct research in their own communities form an essential part of many research projects. However, the effects of conducting research in their own communities have not been adequately explored. This paper examines the experiences, perceptions, and challenges faced by a group of community researchers during their involvement in a research project that examined if, and how, the relationships between mothers and their adolescent daughters could be harnessed to develop a daughter-initiated cervical cancer intervention. Seven community researchers interviewed 157 mother-daughter pairs in Cape Town, South Africa. We examine the use of journaling as a tool to document the experiences of community researchers, and we consider how journaling may help the community-based researcher grapple with the research process, and, more broadly, what such journal content illustrates with respect to the nature and challenges of community-engaged health research. An analysis of the content of the journals provides a strong indication of how personal and intimate the research process can be for community researchers by virtue of the background that they bring into the process as well as the additional weight of the research process itself. The complexities of navigating dual and somewhat oppositional roles – the role of impartial scientist or researcher and the role of invested community person - has been both underestimated and insufficiently researched. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Based on experiences from a qualitative research project on immigrant women's English language acquisition, we critiqued the traditional positivist model, and identified a number of issues related to the engagement of translators/interpreters in feminist and community-based research. The issues that we identified amount to serious questions about ambiguities and ownership of translated language content; assumptions about community familiarity and cultural similarity between researchers, translators, and participants; negotiation of power and authority in the research process; and the risks faced by translators. In the end, though individual research team members bear responsibility over these shortcomings and need to strive to make our research practices more inclusive and equitable, the institutional context of research imposes severe limitations on the ideal alternative model of working with translators and interpreters as co-researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research with people who are not fluent in the dominant language of the research endeavour often involves working with interpreters/ translators or researchers who can speak the relevant minority languages. They conduct the interviews and provide the written data used for analysis in a language other than the original. However, this kind of cross language research is often presented as if it is the analysis of primary data rather than the re-construction of it. We argue that analysis of cross language data shows some strong similarities with secondary data analysis. Questions about the relevance of the context in which data are produced are central to both cross language research and secondary qualitative data analysis. We illustrate our arguments using a research project that examined user views of interpreters and discuss how we dealt with the issue of context in analysing data that were collected by others and produced in languages we did not speak. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plain English Summary: Public health research sometimes uses members of communities as researchers. These are called Community Researchers. The advantage of using Community Researchers is that it enables people who live in communities to participate in research by designing the research, gathering data and being involved in analysis. This 'participatory' approach also has the potential to reach communities that might otherwise not be included in research. There are few studies that report the experiences of Community Researchers who take part in such research. This study helps fill this gap by exploring the issues and challenges faced by Community Researchers involved in a study of health and poverty in ethnically mixed areas of east London, UK. Through the accounts of 12 researchers, the study reveals that being a community 'insider' had advantages: many felt they had been able to gain the trust of respondents and access people for the research that would have otherwise been missed. The role of Community Researcher was, however, difficult to manage with some researchers feeling burdened by their role and the increased knowledge they had about the lives of those in their community. In addition to the personal challenges for the Community Researchers, the findings raise various ethical and methodological issues that need consideration in participatory research., Abstract: Background Inclusive research approaches are increasingly employed by public health researchers. Recent methodological development includes the engagement of Community Researchers (CRs), who use their knowledge and networks to facilitate research with the community with which they identify. Few studies have explored the experiences of CRs in the research process, an important element of any comprehensive assessment of the pros and cons of such research endeavours. We report here on the experiences of CRs engaged in a study of health inequalities and poverty in ethnically diverse and disadvantaged areas of London, UK. Methods We draw on the experiences of 12 CRs. Two sets of data were generated, analysed and integrated: debriefing/active reflection exercises throughout the 18-month research process and individual qualitative interviews with CRs, conducted at the end of the project ( n  = 9). Data were organised using NVivo10 and coded line-by-line using a framework developed iteratively. Synthesis and interpretation were achieved through a series of reflective team exercises involving input from 4 of the CRs. Final consolidation of key themes was conducted by SS and ES. Results Being an 'insider' to the communities brought distinct advantages to the research process but also generated complexities. CRs highlighted how 'something would be lost' without their involvement but still faced challenges in gathering and analysing data. Some CRs found it difficult to practice reflexivity, and problems of ethnic stereotyping were revealed. Conflict between roles as community members and investigators was at times problematic. The approach promoted some aspects of personal empowerment, but CRs were frustrated by the limited impact of the research at the local level. Conclusions Working with CRs offers distinct practical, ethical and methodological advantages to public health researchers, but these are limited by a range of challenges related to 'closeness', orthodox research structures and practices and the complexities of dynamic identities. For research of this type to meet its full potential and avoid harm, there is a need for careful support to CRs and long-term engagement between funders, research institutions and communities.