Research In Action

Note from Dr. Rachel Myers: Today it is my great pleasure to welcome a guest blog from Dr. Mariam Jaffer, MBBS, MPH. Dr. Jaffer joined our research team as an MPH student completing her fieldwork practicum. Following her graduation, she became a Research Coordinator, contributing to our collaborative research project at the Christian Street YMCA. Mariam recently returned to London, where she is continuing her clinical training in pediatrics. 

While working as an Emergency Room physician in London, I developed an interest in public health as a tool to narrow the health inequities I witnessed daily in my clinical work. During my Master of Public Health (MPH) degree at Penn, I encountered Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) as a valuable research approach that builds on existing community strengths to devise relevant and responsive interventions. I was fortunate to see how CBPR works in real-time through my fieldwork placement with Rachel Myers, PhD, MS and Hillary Kapa, MPH at CHOP’s Center for Violence Prevention (CVP) and with the Christian Street YMCA. The partnership’s work was supported by a Joint Pilot Project Award from the CHOP PolicyLab Community Partnerships in Research Program. 

Initial Staff Interviews 

Trauma-informed practices (TIPs) recognize and acknowledge the pervasive impacts trauma can exert upon an individual’s well-being. In the summer of 2023, our team built on an existing collaboration between members of CVP and the Christian Street YMCA and interviewed YMCA staff to understand how staff members define trauma and support individuals who have potentially experienced trauma. My colleague previously blogged earlier this year about the process of co-developing the interview guide. 

During the process of analyzing data with our CHOP-YMCA team, it was clear YMCA staff frequently encountered individuals who potentially experienced trauma and that TIPs are widely utilized at the YMCA. To further support use of TIP, staff members felt that resources such as key cards or tip sheets could be helpful next steps. 

Pilot Resource 

The CHOP-YMCA team collaboratively developed a staff lanyard card that included a stress scale and three easy to implement exercises to help regulate emotions and manage stressful situations in ways that avoided retraumatization. The expertise of YMCA team members ensured the resource was relevant and easy to use in a busy and ever-changing work environment. The card was piloted among summer camp staff over 10 weeks. To evaluate the impact of the card and identify opportunities for development, our team conducted brief interviews with summer camp staff to understand if and how they were using the card, as well as their ideas for future improvements and additional staff- and youth-facing resources to support continued TIP use. From the interviews, we learned that staff found the card helpful in reducing their own stress and useful in supporting campers to communicate and calm their emotions when distressed. 

Dissemination 

Collaboratively developing resources to disseminate research findings is a core principle of CBPR and one which our team embraced throughout this project. Importantly, our efforts have moved beyond solely focusing on traditional modes of academic dissemination to exploring rapid ways to disseminate the knowledge gained and implications of the work to community partners, including project participants. Over the past several months, our team partnered on several strategies to share our work including an academic poster, a staff project summary, and an executive summary to be shared with regional YMCA leadership. Our team co-developed a poster to highlight key findings from the initial staff interviews, which was presented at both the Society for the Advancement of Violence and Injury Research (SAVIR) and CHOP Research Day. These conferences highlighted the importance of community-engaged research in addressing real-world public health challenges. It was exciting to discuss with other CHOP staff members how they could consider adopting community-engaged approaches in their own work to address pediatric health disparities. 

Following this summer’s pilot of the stress card, our team discussed appropriate dissemination strategies to facilitate accessible and relevant formats for different audiences. 

• The first is a brief summary of our process, partnership, and key findings that we shared with summer camp staff who participated in the interviews. This summary detailed the experiences camp staff shared about using the card and, importantly, allowed us to highlight the impact camp staff have on the experiences of campers. We recognize in the busyness of running summer camp for hundreds of young people, the impact staff have in their words and actions is sometimes overlooked. This document spotlighted that impact and emphasized the importance of staff feedback in developing responsive and useful intervention strategies. 
• The second dissemination document was a more formal executive summary, requested by our YMCA team members, which will be shared with YMCA organizational leadership outside of the Christian Street branch. Here we highlighted the pre-existing strengths in TIP implementation observed throughout our data collection at the YMCA, alongside how the partnership supports staff in carrying out their work in line with the YMCA’s values and mission. 

Reflections 

In under a year, this project progressed from initial data collection to resource development and dissemination. This reflects the strength of the CHOP-YMCA partnership, where CBPR principles - including mutual respect and co-learning - are prioritized to facilitate a strong collaboration. Through this experience, I gained an insight into the value of effective dissemination in supporting community-engaged research efforts and the expansion of TIPs in public health practice alongside the importance of centering open collaboration within the team to ensure our work continues to benefit all involved stakeholders.