[From Our Partners] A Community-Focused Approach to Addressing Trauma: Lessons Learned from the Center for Trauma Innovation
In 2017, Exodus Transitional Community (ETC) was funded by the Criminal Justice Investment Initiative (CJII)—a partnership between CUNY ISLG and the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office (DANY)—to develop the Center for Trauma Innovation (CTI). The CTI aims to serve participants who have experienced chronic trauma related, but not limited, to incarceration, poverty, racism, and experiencing/witnessing community violence. It does so through three core prongs: direct services, training and technical assistance, and a learning community.
The CTI is working with an evaluation team at the Center for Complex Trauma (CCT) at Icahn School of Medicine to understand the program’s implementation and impact by using a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach.
To conduct a process evaluation of the program, the CCT used Community-Based Participatory Research methods, a model that incorporates the perspectives of program staff, participants, and funders in research design and execution. This report details that process, as well as the program’s impact on system-impacted communities in East Harlem and beyond, detailing its operations, effectiveness, and areas for improvement.
See our blog to learn about several ways that CTI approaches trauma healing.
As part of this evaluation, the partnership is producing a series of memos and a report that explore these core prongs in theory, how they were put into practice by the CTI, and their impact on participants and the community. The first memo explores the role of learning communities in this evaluation. In the second memo, the focus shifts to the use of data and collaboration to inform future program recommendations. Subsequent evaluation materials will be published and shared on this page.
Reflexive Knowledge Sharing in a Program Evaluation
Knowledge sharing between researchers and community-based partners is a dynamic, iterative process that fosters mutual learning and effective collaboration. It also offers significant benefits to researchers, community stakeholders, and funders. Aligned with the ethos of community-based participatory research (CBPR), reflexive knowledge-sharing ensures both researchers and community-based partners contribute to and learn from the research process.
Building on the CBPR work at the CCT, evaluators have put reflexive knowledge sharing into action in evaluating the CTI. Guided by this approach, evaluators have identified data-driven recommendations, conducted joint discussions between researchers and partners, and outlined plans for the implementation of feasible recommendations—all in partnership with CTI staff.
The process, specific recommendations, and blueprint of the feasibility discussion are detailed in the latest memo, which provides a closer look at the CBPR process and use of reflexive knowledge sharing to foster equitable partnerships.
In our blog, we highlight how CBPR gives community stakeholders a voice in evaluating the programs designed to support them.
Building an Innovative Trauma-Informed Learning Community
Learning communities, also known as “communities of practice” or “knowledge communities,” are collaborative networks dedicated to the exchange of knowledge, experience, and advice between members of similar organizations, entities, identities, and/or locations. This brief showcases the utility of learning communities for supporting innovation, growth, and collaboration among organizations working toward shared outcomes. Community-based participatory research (CBPR) is presented as an approach that is well-suited to support the development of learning communities among organizations working to expand access to innovative, trauma-informed programming in justice-impacted communities.
In partnership with evaluators from the Center for Complex Trauma at Icahn School of Medicine, the CTI is used as a case study to illuminate the process of leveraging community-research partnerships toward the development of learning communities, including challenges, solutions, and lessons learned along the way. This brief concludes with recommendations for program evaluators, community organizations, and other stakeholders interested in establishing innovative, trauma-informed learning communities using a CBPR framework for research-community partnerships.
See our blog for a look at the role evaluation teams can play in creating these learning communities.
ABOUT THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE INVESTMENT INITIATIVE
Under former Manhattan District Attorney Cy R. Vance, Jr., the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office created the Criminal Justice Investment Initiative (CJII) in order to use $250 million seized in international financial crime prosecutions to invest in transformative projects that will improve public safety, prevent crime, and promote a fair and efficient justice system. CJII is a first-of-its-kind effort to support innovative community projects that fill critical gaps and needs in New York City’s criminal legal system infrastructure.
CJII focuses on three investment areas—crime prevention, diversion and reentry, and supports for survivors of crime. The CUNY Institute for State & Local Governance manages and provides technical assistance to CJII contractors, and conducts oversight and performance measurement throughout the lifetime of the initiative.