UTCSW Professor Stan Bowie will be presenting at the Fifth Annual Engagement and Outreach Conference themed Community Engagement: Strategies, Solutions, and Impact on October 3-4, 2022. Dr. Bowie’s presentation titled Knowledge is Power: Using Participatory Action Research to Strengthen University-Community Engagement and Generate Problem-Solving Data.

Participatory Action Research (PAR) is a social work research and problem-solving method whereby disadvantaged/oppressed community members define their own priority problems and desired remedies and play integral roles in all aspects of the research and evidence-building process toward that end. PAR is viewed as a tool for education, consciousness, community mobilization, and empowerment.  

Dr. Bowie will use a case example from his previous work experience in Miami-Dade County to illustrate PAR in action.  “The Miami-Dade County Public Housing Agency requested a team of us (University researchers) to conduct a large-scale, multi-site study that compared public and private property-managed locations to determine which group was more effective in providing social services,” he said.  “All research assistants were public housing residents who were recruited, trained, and compensated as community surveyors.  Among the discussion topics will be recruitment, surveyor training protocols and outcomes, challenges we faced, and policy implications for public housing residents.

Click here to register for the FREE Fifth Annual Engagement and Outreach Conference.