Community-based research in action: tales from the Ktunaxa community learning centres project

Rural communities, particularly Aboriginal communities, often have limited access to health information, a situation that can have significant negative consequences. To address the lack of culturally and geographically relevant health information, a community-university partnership was formed to develop, implement, and evaluate Aboriginal Community Learning Centres (CLCs).

The objective of this paper is to evaluate the community-based research process used in the development of the CLCs. It focuses on the process of building relationships among partners and the CLC's value and sustainability.

Semistructured interviews were conducted with key stakeholders, including principal investigators, community research leads, and supervisors. The interview transcripts were analyzed using an open-coding process to identify themes.

Key challenges included enacting shared project governance, negotiating different working styles, and hiring practices based on commitment to project objectives rather than skill set. Technological access provided by the CLCs increased capacity for learning and collective community initiatives, as well as building community leads' skills, knowledge, and self-efficacy. An important lesson was to meet all partners "where they are" in building trusting relationships and adapting research methods to fit the project's context and strengths.

Successful results were dependent upon persistence and patience in working through differences, and breaking the project into achievable goals, which collectively contributed to trust and capacity building. The process of building these partnerships resulted in increased capacity of communities to facilitate learning and change initiatives, and the capacity of the university to engage in successful research partnerships with Aboriginal communities in the future.