WED-103 - Creative Conversations: Enhancing Community Engagement with Creative Expression

Brief Abstract Summary: Discover ways to more meaningfully engage priority community members. Through this case study, presenters will discuss how an institution partnered with a key gatekeeper in westside Chicago. Presenters will share plans and strategies employed to gain the trust of community members, as attendees brainstorm strategies to connect with the gatekeepers of their communities. Then, the presenters will share strategies to further build trust and begin learning from community members about their needs regarding adolescent health. What started out as a list of focus group questions, morphed into engaging activities using art and creative expression, allowing for richer data and context. Attendees will explore opportunities to engage their communities. Attendees will brainstorm creative, hands-on activities that can provide meaningful insight to their community’s perspectives, experiences, and needs.

Detailed abstract description: Community health efforts are most successful when the community members are actively involved in defining challenges, brainstorming solutions, and driving the approaches. Such efforts are often done using community-based participatory research and participatory action research methodologies, which are critical to build trust between institutions and communities while collectively working towards outcomes to benefit the community.

The Texas A&M University College of Nursing and School of Public Health were jointly awarded a five-year grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to advance adolescent health in one of the country’s largest metropolitan areas. This project - Chicago’s Partnerships & Opportunities for Adolescent Health Preparation, Support & Services (POPSS) - is a collaboration with Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. The POPSS project aims to increase health equity by implementing evidence-based programs, policies, and resources in schools, clinics, community sites, and congregate care settings in historically underserved communities in the greater Chicagoland area. One particular priority community for this project is westside Chicago, and one key pillar of the project is community engagement for capacity building.

Through this project, the POPSS team is developing a mechanism that connects youth-serving professionals and other interested stakeholders to resources, content, trainings, and tools that further build their understanding and capacity around adolescent health. The modality of the mechanism is still in development and will be prototyped in early 2025 based on community input. The mechanism and its contents is being informed by community members and youth-serving professionals.

This session will begin with discussing how the POPSS team partnered with a key gatekeeper in westside Chicago. Presenters will explain the plans and strategies employed to gain the trust and buy-in of community members to engage with the POPSS team. Attendees will apply content to their own work by brainstorming strategies to connect with key gatekeepers among their priority populations to further enhance their work. Then, the presenters will share strategies used during community conversations and other events to further build trust and begin learning from community members about their needs regarding adolescent health. What started out as a list of focus group questions, morphed into engaging activities using art and creative expression, allowing for richer data and context. Attendees will explore opportunities to engage their communities. The presenters will walk attendees through a brainstorming activity to identify creative, hands-on activities that can provide meaningful insight to the community’s perspectives, experiences, and needs.