The successful immigrant integration in America
With the current refugee crisis and the increased number of foreign-born being resettled in different American cities, the organization Welcoming America saw an urgent need to better approach integration of newcomers for peace and prosperity. Consequently, they addressed the process in an innovative way: the successful integration of immigrants requires not only meeting the needs of the newly arrived population, but also of the receiving community (Rodriguez, 2016). This is community building. In other words, Welcoming America’s approach to integration emphasizes the idea that, in order to improve delivery of services and fill the gap between theory and practice that too often results in irrelevant legislation and worthless practice, any local government wishing to become more welcoming needs to engage in evidence collection, evaluation, and application with the immigrant-serving agencies, and the community they wish to serve, (Bellamy, et al. 2008).
The model followed by Welcoming America for community building is essentially Evidence-Based-Practice (EBP) or Community based participatory research. It is therefore relevant to look further into what those are, the challenges involved with these methods, and what could be done to improve in the field.
Why is evidence based practice important?
Too often, it is easy to notice a disconnection between rules and legislation and the reality of the field. It would therefore make sense to have a way to reconcile both by having legislators and practitioners work together to understand what the issues are, identify the needs, and come up with the best applicable solutions. This is exactly what Evidence-based-practice (EBP) and Community Based Participatory Research entitle/permit/emphasize.
EBP is defined as a tprofessional model of practice [consisting in] a series of steps encompassing the adoption and implementation of a collection of values and activitiest (Bellamy, et al. 2008). EBP aims to improve practice outcomes, develop professional skills such as critical thinking, be responsible to clients, and be more efficient in staying up to date on current research knowledge.
The main types of partnership or civic engagement
Community based participatory research works in such a manner that will promote social and economic justice (Kennedy, E., ; Monsen, 2016). Normally, Community based participatory research intentionally engage formerly disenfranchised communities and institutions, which offer advocacy and services for the undeserved groups. The appeal of establishing Community based participatory research is the intended mutual benefit to students, faculty, and community organizations and bodies via service learning, capacity, and infrastructure building, converting practice to research, and similarly practical world practice that informs research choices (Price, 2012). For a community-based institution offering direct services, collaborating with a university or any other academic institution has great benefits, which would otherwise lack if traditional methods of conducting research were applied. There are four main types of partnership or civic engagement: local economic development, service learning, social work initiatives, and community-based research. Partnership type is reliant on collaboration between the community partner and the researcher whereby a trusting as well as respectful relationship is created through communication, transparency, in addition to respect for the diversity and organizational culture.
The value of relationships in Community based participatory research cannot be overstated, and a good relationship takes long to come by. For a Community based participatory research to be conducted in a successful manner, there should be communication, mutual interests, and trust (Archer-Kuhn, B., ; Grant, 2014).
1.Introduction and overview of EBP
2.Selecting questions
3.Summary of research evidence
4.Quest tools
5.Search demonstration
6.Finding the problems for the search
7.Analyzing the evidence
8.Summary of the observations and findings
9.Analyzing the found evidence
10.Action plan
Community based participatory research; benefits
1.Widening of theoretical knowledge. Participating in community based participatory research widens the understanding of academicians through propositional knowledge gotten from academic literature.
2.Secondly, it helps in improving practical knowledge. All respondents reported having improved practical knowledge and skills in the manner in which one conducted university-community collaborative research, specifically co-inquiry.
3.Deepening sensitivity – a majority of participants reported that they had attained greater awareness of the shades of participatory research.
4.Stimulating reflexivity – participants reported that it improved their capability to sit back and reflect on their values and influence in the project.
5.Leading to further action – a participant does not relax after finishing one project, instead he or she engages on new projects on the grounds of co-inquiry approach while other improve their current practice (Banks, 2014).
6.Developing self-confidence – by participating in the collaborative research, community members indicated that it improved on self-confidence.
Barriers to adopting EBP
1.Lack of resources, for instance, funding, access to research, and funding.
2.Lack of knowledge, for example, supervision for staff, research skills, and training.
3.Suspicion of the evidenced based practice concept, EBP is a model, which does not include theory.
4.Lack of fit, the evidence that is available is either insufficient or irrelevant.
Other participants also note that government, accreditation, or any other monitoring agencies passed down EBPs or other directives related to EBPs without consideration for practical world or the requirement for support during the execution of practice innovations (Harrison, M. B., ; Graham, 2012). Having a practice model, which offer flexibility in addition to a way to make changes in the event the recommended approach failed to work in practice. Conflicting pressures is also another barrier to community based participatory research. Among the responses from the participants, it is evident that conflicting pressures either discourage or advocated for the use of the agency-community partnership. Moreover, although EBP is designed in such a manner that theoretically it would provide a constant feedback loop starting from research to practice to research again, participants indicate that there lacks the infrastructure for this type of communication to link their practical experience to researchers.
How to improve Community based participatory research?
Agency teams recognized several promoters for EBP as a tool of professional practice. A good number of the factors enhancing EBP reflected the hurdles to EBP execution mentioned above and include financing, employment, and retention of the skilled staff, access to internet, time, as well as expanded research base (Burbank, M. D., ; Hunter, 2008). Moreover, EBP can be improved by targeting agency culture and structure. Participants also indicate that the outright devotion of resources and time toward EBP-related activities is amongst the main enhancements concerned with the culture of the agency. They also described roles for improving EBP, which are played by professional bodies like licensure boards, funding bodies, and accreditation committees. These could best promote the community based participatory research by offering research literature, progressive education programs, and facilitating service quality by enhancing state licensure requirements (Golden-Biddle et al., 2003).
References
Burbank, M. D., ; Hunter, R. (2008). The Community Advocate Model: Linking Communities, School Districts, and Universities to Support Families and Exchange Knowledge.Journal Of Community Engagement ; Scholarship, 1(1), 47-55.
Golden-Biddle, K., Reay, T., Petz, S., Witt, C., Casebeer, A., Pablo, A., ; Hinings, C. R. (2003).Toward a communicative perspective of collaborating in research: the case of the researchertdecision-maker partnership. Journal Of Health Services Research ; Policy, 820-25. doi:10.1258/135581903322405135
Archer-Kuhn, B., ; Grant, J. (2014). Challenging Contextual Factors in University-Community Partnerships. Journal Of Community Engagement ; Scholarship, 7(2), 40-49.
Banks, S., Armstrong, A., Booth, M., Brown, G., Carter, K., Clarkson, M., ; … Russell, A. (2014). Using Co-Inquiry to Study Co-Inquiry: Community-University Perspectives on Research. Journal Of Community Engagement ; Scholarship, 7(1), 37-47.
Bellamy, J. L., Bledsoe, S. E., Mullen, E. J., Lin, F., ; Manuel, J. I. (2008). Agency-University Partnership for Evidence-Based Practice in Social Work. Journal of Social Work Education, 44(3), 55-75.
Harrison, M. B., ; Graham, I. D. (2012). Roadmap for a Participatory Research-Practice Partnership to Implement Evidence. Worldviews On Evidence-Based Nursing, 9(4), 210-220. doi:10.1111/j.1741-6787.2012.00256.x
Price, S. K., Kready, S. F., Mogul, M., Cohen-Filipic, K., ; Davey, T. L. (2012). Partnership Process Guidelines: Social Work Perspectives on Creating and Sustaining Real-World University-Community Partnerships. Journal Of Community Engagement ; Scholarship,6(1), 45-54.
Kennedy, E., ; Monsen, J. J. (2016). Evidence-based practice in educational and child psychology: Opportunities for practitioner-researchers using problem-
