Truly Helpful Technical Assistance That Empowers Community Groups to Lead Health Research Projects

The Colorado Foundation for Public Health and the Environment (CFPHE) draws from experiences in managing two award programs (over 100 awardees) designed to empower community and academic groups to work collectively towards improving community and patient health care.  Training community groups and patient advocates to be effective leaders in translational research has unique challenges and requires a shift in focus from traditional training techniques. Effective technical assistance requires tailoring to each awardee in the beginning and gradually moving towards an understanding of common research practices and terminology. Managing budgets, negotiating the timelines of research and community, creating collective and agreed upon expectations for each stage of a project, and finding a partnership’s collective passion are common challenges patient advocates and community groups face when they begin to engage in research.  Providing a “training wheels” approach to technical assistance helps to provide a sense of safety in the work all while building skills and partnerships to support the work as it progresses and eventually becomes independent of any one particular funder. This presentation will highlight technical assistance techniques and tools, stories from awardees and examples of collaboration between funders and awardees to demonstrate a cooperative method of engaging patient advocates and community groups in the research process.