Project Summary

A growing number of intimate partner violence (IPV) researchers have embraced community-based participatory research (CBPR), an approach in which researchers and community members share power at every level of the research process and co-create knowledge and resources that can be used by the communities themselves. However, there are insufficient opportunities for IPV researchers to learn how to engage with communities through CBPR; and even well-intentioned researchers can develop questions that are not relevant to community needs, employ methods that hurt community members, or disseminate findings in a way that are inaccessible to those most affected. This project lays out a set of principles and practices for developing, promoting, and disseminating future CBPR research.

Approach

A working group of IPV-focused CBPR researchers collaborated with the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence to build an online CBPR toolkit, useful for a broad audience, including emerging IPV researchers. 

Key Findings

This toolkit is composed of four parts:

1. Introduction to the toolkit
2. An overview of CBPR and its history in the domestic violence context
3. Tools for self-examination for researchers considering CBPR
4. Values that shape CBPR and how these values translate into practices for CBPR with domestic violence survivors.

The toolkit provides examples of model partnerships from the field, reflection exercises to assess “readiness” to engage in CBPR, emerging researchers’ perspectives on why they chose CBPR, practice tips, and links to supplemental materials, including additional readings and sample research materials.

Publications