Community-Based Participatory Research 

Placing YOUR wants and needs at the center of research 

In this week’s newsletter, we wanted to introduce the concept of community-based participatory research, introduce you to our new Community Advisory Board, reflect on the ideas lifted up at our first meeting, and invite you to share YOUR ideas with us! 

🔍 What is community-based participatory research (CBPR)? 

👥 CBPR is a collaborative approach to research that involves stakeholders in the research process to creative positive and lasting change. In CBPR, the questions we ask are driven by the expressed needs of stakeholders. As a lab that is focused on youth mental health and resilience, our stakeholders include youth, caregivers, and folks who work with and for youth—e.g., pediatricians, mental health workers, educators, community leaders, etc.  

🧑🏽‍🤝‍🧑🏼 What is a community advisory board (CAB)? 

A community advisory board is a group of individuals that represent the stakeholders in our research. A CAB is a core component of CBPR; in this manner, the community’s oversight through representation on the CAB is meant to protect the values and interests of the stakeholders.  

Our Ruvvy Resilience Lab CAB is currently comprised of 8 individuals. We have voices of the youth we serve, including two teenage students and one young adult. We also represent folks who care for youth, including an art therapist/psychologist and a social worker, and three leaders of nonprofit organizations centered around youth and caregivers (Brilliant Detroit, Figure Skating in Detroit, and Mosaic Youth Theatre).

We are so grateful for the time, knowledge, and enthusiasm they contribute to our lab! 

💡 What have we learned from our CAB so far? 

We had our first CAB meeting in April and came back with a number of great ideas and insights!

• We learned that youth are predominantly consuming video media, and that focusing on platforms like YouTube and TikTok can help us successfully get our message out to stakeholders. 🎥

• You may already be familiar with our YouTube channel (@TheRuvvyResilienceLab); based on the feedback of our CAB we are now also working to launch our TikTok channel! 📣🎬

Per the suggestion of our CAB, we are also working on creating an Ambassador Kit, so that our CAB members and all of our stakeholders can share the content and knowledge we are generating with their communities for application in daily life.

We are putting together:

• Infographics

• Guided exercise videos

• Resource brochures

  …..and more to help you foster resilience in your own life and that of your loved ones!

  Stay tuned, we will be sharing this with all newsletter subscribers! 

Finally, we are grateful to our CAB for connecting us with like-minded individuals and organizations across the metro Detroit region, so that we can all become stronger by working together towards our shared missions. 🤝

✉️ We'd love to hear from YOU!

Do you have an idea for our research and outreach?

What key questions do you think we need to be asking about youth mental health and resilience?

How can we best get this information back into your hands?

📩 Email us at [email protected] and let us know!  

🌿 May is Mental Health Awareness Month! Early identification, comprehensive evaluation, and appropriate intervention are crucial to ensuring that the youth in our lives are being supported as best as they can be.  

• 🧠 Be an advocate for the mental health of the young people in your life! You can find free resources to support youth who may be struggling here: aacap.org/Mental_Health_Awareness_Month 

• 🎯 Looking for FREE, anonymous, and brief self-guided mental health tools for teens? Project YES empowers teens to learn new ways of dealing with stress while helping others to do the same. Project YES can be accessed in 8 languages here: https://www.schleiderlab.org/yes.html 

• 💪 Caregivers, are you looking for a FREE, science-backed way to build bravery and reduce anxiety in the youth in your life? Project EMPOWER is a brief online session  to help you do exactly that! Project EMPOWER can be accessed in 3 languages here: https://www.schleiderlab.org/empower.html  

_{Help Support Science Content & Communication}

Our team is so excited to get the word out to the people we serve and inform for FREE … and your support will allow us to put more resources and energy into doing precisely that.

Your donations help fund the creation of content that translates our research into practice.

Consider supporting our outreach efforts:

Stay Resilient!