Supporting ethical practice in community-engaged research with 4R: Respond, Record, Reflect, and Revise

Abstract

Efforts towards adaptation, dissemination, and implementation of culturally robust, evidenceinformed mental healthcare rely on community-engaged research (CEnR). Academic-community partnerships help bring science to service for vulnerable and historically disenfranchised populations (e.g., communities of color and those characterized by poverty). A growing literature supports the development of a framework of ethics for CEnR. This article examines ethical tensions in the context of the American Psychological Association Ethics Code General Principles -Beneficence and Nonmaleficence; Fidelity and Responsibility; Integrity; Justice; and Respect for People's Rights and Dignity -and presents the 4R action plan to support application of APA guidelines to academic-community partnership with youth-serving organizations. Keywords community-engaged research; vulnerable populations; academic-community partnership; trainingA robust body of literature documents obstacles to the dissemination and adoption of evidence-based mental health care (Kazdin & Blase, 2011), altogether contributing to a 17year gap from service development and evaluation to public availability and use (Morris, Wooding, & Grant, 2011). Despite rapid demographic diversification of the American population, the science of mental healthcare has struggled to keep pace in both examining effectiveness of promising interventions across subcultural groups (González Castro, Barrera, & Holleran Steiker, 2010), and meeting the unique needs of youth and families in poverty (Cappella, Frazier, Atkins, Schoenwald, & Glisson, 2008;Frazier, Cappella, & Atkins, 2007). Toward bridging these gaps, investigators in psychology have increasingly turned to research designs incorporating science-community partnerships to facilitate the transport of evidence-based mental health recommendations to natural settings in accessible, culturally robust formats (Frazier, Abdul-Adil, Atkins, Gathright, & Jackson, 2007;González Castro et al., 2010). New settings, however, bring new complications requiring careful consideration in the application of traditional ethical standards to non-traditional spaces.Community-based organizations (CBOs; e.g., community healthcare centers, non-profit and publicly funded youth programs) face challenges uncommon to traditional university-based research contexts (Campbell & Morris, 2017a). Moreover, CBOs' fast-paced, high-need programming aligns poorly with academic institutions' operating procedures (e.g., institutional review board [IRB] processes, traditional definitions of feasibility, accounting

CORE: Compassion Oriented Reflection and Engagement to Guide Academic-Community Partnership

“…Additionally, Beaumont & Hollins Martin (2016) propose that Compassionate Mind Training might improve student therapists’ well-being, reduce burnout and compassion fatigue, and promote resilience. Specifically, journaling, reflexivity, and group debriefing (e.g., opportunities to consider events in partnership non-judgmentally as a team, to seek support and guidance) help community-engaged researchers support ethical practice ( Case, 2017 ; Chou & Frazier, 2019 ), consider consultation and partnership with objective distance, and track ongoing work to provide evidence of progress and counter self-critical thinking. Studies also have demonstrated the ability of the Gestalt two-chair technique to increase self-compassion and decrease anxiety and depression ( Neff, 2004 ).…”

“…Systematic cultivation of ACPs has yielded a robust body of work describing conceptual models to maximize the success of EBP implementation in community-based organizations (CBOs) (see Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research, Damschroder et al, 2009 ), and investigators have presented frontline challenges and examples of problem solving, “lessons learned,” and recommendations for the procedures of ACP ( Frazier et al, 2019 ; Stetler et al, 2006 ). In contrast to the well-established literature describing what to do (e.g., specific steps) in partnership, a growing discourse has increasingly called for guidance in the process of ACP, or how to do it (e.g., ethics, Campbell & Morris, 2017 ; Chou & Frazier, 2019 ). To this end, we introduce Compassion-Oriented Reflection and Engagement (CORE), a process model guiding our role and function as academic partners and describe its development and application through our experience as community-engaged researchers working in collaboration with a youth-serving non-profit organization called Champions (a pseudonym).…”