Collaboration across CTSA’s continues to be a high priority for Tufts CTSI. In addition to our ongoing relationships with the CTSA’s at Harvard University and Boston University, Tufts CTSI was thrilled to join with Case Western Clinical and Translational Research Center (CTRC) on November 17th for a day of sharing expertise and discussing Tufts CTSI’s Building Your Capacity Community (BYC) Fellowship Program.
Welcomed by the Director of Tufts CTSI’s Center for Aligning Researchers and Communities for Health (ARCH), Laurel Leslie, MD, and Carolyn Leung Rubin, ARCH Program Manager, the Case Western visiting team included James Werner, PhD, Jeri Jewett-Tennant, MPH, Caitlin Mocarski, MPH, and Jackie Matloub, M.B. Dr. Werner is Assistant Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and the Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences at Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) and Director of the Practice-Based Research Network (PBRN) Shared Resource of Case Western’s CTRC. Ms. Jewett-Tennant is the Communication & Dissemination Coordinator for Case Western’s Prevention Research Center for Health Neighborhoods (PRCHN). Ms. Mocarski is involved in the development of the PEER Training Program, a similar program to the BYC Fellowship. Ms. Matloub is the Training and Mentoring & Research Coordinator at the PRCHN.
Case Western CTRC and Tufts CTSI BYC Steering Committee
A breakfast meeting with Tufts CTSI’s BYC Steering Committee was followed by a lunch meeting with Tufts CTSI’s BYC Fellows and an overview of the BYC Curriculum Guide. The Case Western CTRC staff had the opportunity to question both Steering Committee members and BYC Fellows on the logistics of the Program as well as the application review process, curriculum development and the evaluation process. Fellows provided compelling stories of how they brought what they learned from the BYC Program about community based research back to their community programs in practical, authentic ways. “We have become evangelists for community-based participatory research,” said one of the Fellows.
Case Western CTRC and Tufts CTSI BYC Fellows
Going forward, Tufts CTSI and Case Western CTRC agreed that collaborative efforts related to community engagement would be continued and encouraged.
