Louise A. Parker & Laura G. Hill Washington State University October 2004 Scholarship of Outreach Positioning Research as an Asset to Attract Community Partners Louise A. Parker Laura G. Hill Washington State University

2 Partnering with communities Promoting research capacity of land-grant universities Two challenges: –One is internal –One is external

3 Internal challenges The Promise of Integrated Research and Extension: How Real is It?

4 Internal Challenges

5 Challenge  Opportunity Pressure for accountability Needs for outside funding Developments in world of prevention science Present challenge and a unique opportunity for Extension and Human Development, Family Studies, FCS departments

6 Internal Opportunities Our story: –Human Dev department emphasized prevention capacity and hired prevention researchers –Extension adopted evidence-based Strengthening Families Program (SFP)

7 Strengthening Families Program 7-week program for parents and youth aged Longitudinal research conducted by Iowa State has demonstrated significant improvements in family cohesion and lower rates of substance initiation / misuse

8 Internal Solutions Campus-field-administration team began systematic dissemination across state Dissemination included research and evaluation component (prevention research program) Creation of partial extension appointment to support faculty involvement

9 External Challenge How do you find community partners interested not only in participating in program but also in the research aspects of the endeavor?

10 Marketing Our Capacity Other entities are also providing evidence-based programming to communities, including SFP Our approach has been to market both research and practice aspects of SFP together

11 Marketing Our Capacity Locally Incentive for communities to participate in research (data gathering) – Quality training in delivery and evaluation  fidelity – Outcome reports  Graduate student involvement

12 Marketing Our Capacity Statewide Data collection (outcome, implementation) led to presentations at national conferences This in turn led to partnerships with state agencies (Division of Alcohol and Substance Abuse)

13 Statewide Partnerships They like our research and training capacity We like their locally funding of programs which gives us different entrée to community-based programs and statewide prevention network Partnership led to collaborative federal grant proposal

14 Research Leads to Funding We are able to show statewide program impacts by aggregating data across programs –Statistical benefits of aggregate data Good statewide data help communities obtain/sustain funding

15 Sustaining Collaboration What makes this sustainable? –Relationship-building –Regular goal-setting retreats  Also with state partners –Community needs influence our agenda