There is limited evidence regarding strategies that policymakers can use to revitalize neighborhoods without contributing to displacement, particularly those involving community advocacy. This study examines how a sample of Latino Catholic parishioners in the eastern Los Angeles area perceive advocacy and neighborhood change before and after participating in a park environmental advocacy training. Two groups with a total of 16 participants (85% women, median age 68) of a faith-based physical activity intervention received a two-day advocacy training in December 2023 and March 2024. The training involved conducting a park audit to identify environmental issues and developing advocacy plans to engage local decision-makers. Participants completed pre- and post-training surveys (n=12) on advocacy knowledge and post-training interviews (n=13; 85% in Spanish) on perceptions of advocacy, neighborhoods, and the training. Interviews were analyzed using a reflexive thematic approach. Participants reported general barriers to advocacy such as lack of time, knowledge, and distrust of government officials. General facilitators included past advocacy success and social responsibility. Although survey results showed no statistically significant change in advocacy knowledge post-intervention in this small sample, interviews suggested that participants experienced increased perceived social cohesion and motivation to engage in future advocacy. Participants described how advocacy could improve neighborhood cohesion and satisfaction. Findings support the role of community-led advocacy in neighborhood revitalization efforts to advance health and environmental equity in Latino communities.
Intersecting crises of social disconnectedness and climate change-induced extreme weather create a reinforcing cycle of vulnerability, wherein extreme weather strains social environments and amplifies disconnectedness, while social disconnectedness hinders communities' adaptive capacity (i.e. how communities respond to and fare in extreme weather). Place-based inequities influence vulnerability to these cumulative stressors, underscoring the value of participatory assessments of socio-ecological systems. Guided by the multisolving and relationality frameworks, this study explored social connectedness in Appalachian Ohio to inform solutions for connectedness and extreme weather adaptive capacity. Participatory photo mapping (n = 16) in Athens County, Ohio, involved photo mapping and photo-and-map-elicitation interviews. Thematic analysis revealed determinants of social connectedness and adaptive capacity, including green spaces, animals, community hubs, and mutual aid. Community members reported experiencing disparate access based on rurality and resource constraints. Extreme weather impacted social systems by hindering travel and outdoor activities, worsening digital divides, and altering familiar environments. Findings inform community practice strategies, including addressing disparities proactively, transcending social work's anthropocentric underpinnings, leveraging Collective Survival Strategies, and championing public investments. This study also highlights the significance of human and more-than-human relationality within socio-environmental systems.
Urban resilience has become a central theme in addressing the complex challenges faced by rapidly growing cities. The Asia Resilient Cities (ARC) Project, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), aimed to foster resilience through a co-creation approach that combines participatory systems mapping (PSM) and community engagement. This article outlines ARC's methodology, which integrates diverse stakeholder perspectives, including marginalized groups, into urban resilience planning in four cities: Rajkot, India; Khulna, Bangladesh; Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic; and Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. The article discusses how ARC adapted lessons from previous projects, emphasizing early and meaningful resident involvement to shape work plans that reflect the lived realities of city residents. Initial results highlight both the strengths and learnings from integrating resident feedback into resilience strategies, demonstrating how co-creation can align technical expertise with local context to create more inclusive, actionable plans. Key themes include the role of systems thinking, multi-stakeholder participation, and adaptive learning in urban planning. The findings underscore the need for contextualized and collaborative approaches to address the "wicked problems" inherent in urban development and resilience building.
Advancing climate change will likely alter the availability of food and diminish community resilience. To partially address these challenges for urban communities, collective or community-assisted gardens have been recognized as a useful policy option. In addition to these benefits, community-assisted gardens improve the efficacy of refugee resettlement programs by providing access to fresh produce. We explored the experiences and perceptions of Burmese refugees participating in three different community-assisted garden programs; individual backyard gardens, personal-use community gardens, and enterprise community-assisted gardens. Our semistructured interviews of 18 Burmese refugees resulted in three broad themes: benefits, challenges, and issues related to recruitment and support for gardening. Subthemes of benefits included economic benefits, improved diet and physical health, and improved social connections. Our findings illustrate that a complex mixture of benefits and challenges were experienced by Burmese refugees participating in the three programs resulting in multidimensional factors of well-being encompassed by nutritional, economic, and social health elements. Specific benefits from the three programs included: strengthening family relationships, providing families with culturally relevant food, fresh organic vegetables, saving money on the family's food budget, improving social relationships with community members. We suggest community-assisted gardens can play an important role in refugee resettlement efforts and ameliorate global climate change on a local scale, but these programs would benefit from a greater recognition of the complexity of issues faced by refugees.
This research aimed to compare the conceptualization of ecovillages in developed nations and Southeast Asia, using Malaysia as a case study. Thirty-three ecovillage definitions expressed by ecovillage residents from developed countries and individuals in sustainability-related specializations in Malaysia were analyzed thematically through semi-structured interviews. Findings revealed that, for individuals in Malaysia, ecovillages are communities that strive for economic self-sufficiency and live in harmony with nature. Contrastingly, for ecovillagers in developed nations, ecovillages are intentional communities that strive for holistic sustainability across ecological, social, economic, and cultural dimensions. The theoretical contribution offers new perspectives on the quadruple bottom line, highlighting that this framework is a more suitable lens for conceptualizing mature ecovillages, as they strive to balance across all four dimensions of sustainability. Emerging ecovillages, however, tend to focus on limited dimensions, making the quadruple bottom line less applicable at this stage. Practically, recognizing this progression pattern can help emerging ecovillages and individuals interested in building ecovillage communities align their strategies with local realities, economic self-sufficiency, and environmental sustainability in the Malaysian context, and gradually strive toward holistic sustainability.
This paper presents a critical reflection on the use of Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) in a project aimed at improving the health of children with asthma living in subsidized housing in Washington, DC. Childhood asthma is shaped by clinical, environmental, and structural factors, including housing disinvestment and environmental injustice that disproportionately burden Black families. Using CBPR, we center residents' lived experiences, identify social and structural contributors to asthma, and examine how housing and health programs are implemented and perceived. Drawing on critical reflections from an interdisciplinary, multiracial research team comprising faculty, students, and community partners, we describe how CBPR principles were applied, challenges encountered, and strategies used to address power imbalances, mistrust, and resource constraints. Findings demonstrate that CBPR enabled the documentation of overlooked environmental conditions and supported the dissemination of evidence beyond academic settings. This reflection underscores CBPR's value in addressing environmental injustice, advancing racial health equity, and strengthening community-driven responses to environmental challenges.
The global "Rights of Nature" (RON) movement challenges legal systems to recognize ecosystems as rights-bearing entities, yet little research examines how community practitioners navigate such campaigns. This case study explores a grassroots effort to pass the Lake Erie Bill of Rights (LEBOR) in Toledo, Ohio, and its implications for community practice. Drawing on interviews with organizers, document analysis, and video data, we trace how Toledoans for Safe Water mobilized after a 2014 water crisis caused by toxic algal blooms, ultimately passing LEBOR in 2019 before a federal court struck down the law in 2020. Findings were grouped into two groups: a) those related to the analysis of the campaign's tactics and decisions, and b) how the broader community responded to the campaign. The former highlighted how grassroots political activity was part of organizers' sociopolitical development and the limitations of the legal system in vouchsafing nature's well-being. The latter demonstrated how experiences with ecological crisis led community residents to be more amenable to the campaign and the ways in which local governments and corporations contested the campaign. For community practitioners, this case offers insight into justice work concerning non-humans and into how experiences with ecological disasters may mobilize communities. We discuss implications for the environmental community practice as well as for the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Directions for future research are also identified.
Despite growing awareness of climate change's disproportionate impact on historically marginalized communities, their voices remain underrepresented in research and planning. The Community-Academic Partnerships to Advance Equity-Focused Climate Action (CAPECA) project sought to bridge this gap by supporting equitable collaborations between community leaders and academic researchers. Grounded in participatory action research, popular education, and social equity frameworks, CAPECA supported 12 community-academic partnership (CAP) teams across California to develop and implement community-driven climate strategies. This descriptive case study draws on exit interviews, program archives, and team-generated materials to examine CAPECA's 18-month training program. Findings show that CAPECA strengthened participants' skills in inclusive facilitation, research design, and action planning. Teams applied participatory methods to co-produce knowledge, mobilize engagement, and center cultural and local priorities. Community-led strategies ranged from intergenerational learning and arts-based events to environmental monitoring and policy advocacy. CAPECA offers a replicable model for embedding equity and frontline leadership in climate resilience initiatives.
This article focuses on a new federally funded environmental sustainability partnerships that deepens local engagement in environmental stewardship in various geographic and economic settings in the United States. Campus Compact EnviroCorps (CCEC) is the first nationwide AmeriCorps program solely dedicated to campus-based and community-led environmental stewardship. CCEC builds the capacity of colleges and their community partners to create change that leads to increased energy efficiency and improvements for ecosystems by implementing local solutions with households and communities. CCEC is focused on supporting campus/community partnerships that lower energy use and costs for households, raise awareness, and address nature conservation issues in communities. Host sites include a variety of campus and community partner organization types. CCEC program evaluation demonstrates statistically significant improvements via community education training pre- and post-tests at 14 host sites in 8 states with varying environmental ecosystems. AmeriCorps member pre- and post-surveys provide evidence of increased knowledge and skills in program areas, which increases the number of trained workers focused on energy efficiency and improvements for ecosystems via community partnerships.
Place-based harms comprise direct threats to community wellbeing within the spaces where people live. These harms, rooted in structural and cultural violence, are codified in policies and programs that contribute to poverty, homelessness, over-policing and surveillance, and environmental injustices. This paper argues, although community practitioners are needed to work alongside communities impacted by place-based harms, there are critical tensions and tradeoffs embedded within the place-based strategies. To illustrate this, we draw from the Contested Places Typology and present cases that highlight key tensions, tradeoffs, and nuances associated with its six approaches: (1) Reparation, (2) Remembrance, (3) Regeneration, (4) Resistance, (5) Reform, and (6) Repatriation and Rematriation. We contend these six approaches can help students and practitioners imagine new possibilities for justly responding to place-based harms.
Community engagement is a multifaceted process essential to Community Design (CD) projects. Despite its growing significance, achieving genuine engagement remains challenging due to declining community commitment, reactive practices, unequal power dynamics, and limited understanding of participants' motivations. To address these challenges, this study employs Self-Determination Theory (SDT) to examine community engagement mechanisms in three CD projects in Japan. Thematic analysis of interviews with 42 stakeholders identifies three interdependent types of engagement: program implementation, capacity building, and ecosystem development and sustenance, each requiring diverse skills and stakeholder collaboration. Enablers include fulfilling autonomy, competence, and relatedness needs through shared goals, mentorship, and capacity-building initiatives. Barriers, such as resource constraints, member attrition, and external challenges, were also identified. To overcome these barriers, the study proposes strategies to cultivate an SDT-supportive environment, including structured activities and mentorship programs. These findings offer actionable insights for practitioners while advancing SDT by illustrating how its core psychological needs can be satisfied within CD contexts. By addressing both enablers and barriers, this research contributes to more robust and sustainable community engagement practices.
This study examines community vitality beyond Western contexts and focuses on India's diverse linguistic, religious, caste-based, indigenous, migratory, and non-native ethnic communities. It begins by defining community, vitality, and community vitality with emphasis on their importance for community development. The study further explores the elements that contribute to a vital community by comparing concepts from multidisciplinary literature. It compares community vitality with concepts like sustainability, resilience, and activism and highlights their unique qualities and synergies. The findings stress the need to consider social, economic, environmental, and cultural factors in promoting community vitality in the Global South. The study concludes with implications for theory, practice, and future research.
Health restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the move to virtual work affected how restorative justice (RJ) programs functioned and evolved. As RJ is often centered around in-person gatherings, this study explores how organizations adapted to the challenges faced by the pandemic in British Columbia, Alberta, and Saskatchewan. 41 Key Informants were interviewed about the impacts of the pandemic on their respective programs and the innovative solutions employed to continue providing services. Three boarder themes-a) COVID-measured restorative justice practices, b) remote restorative justice practices and c) hybrid restorative justice practices emerged from the analysis of participants' qualitative data. It was found that since the initial lockdowns, most organizations have offered services entirely online with some services operating in-person under strict health measures. In-person services such as circles and client meetings were commonly moved outside. A hybrid model-the combination of online and in-person-has allowed some participants to gather with facilitators in-person and others to join remotely, or initial intake interviews to be conducted remotely with circles and direct dialogue processes held in person. This study ends with sharing limitations and policy recommendations for justice stakeholders in AB, BC, and SK.
The primary function of a day labor exchange organization is to connect workers with jobs, with a latent function to create positive engagement within the community. This case study examines the experiences of workers at a site for daily employment. We conducted hundreds of hours of participant observation, analyzed relevant organizational documents, interviewed 23 individuals, and hosted a focus group discussion about the findings at a worker meeting. Three primary themes emerged from the study: the role of immigration, the economic necessity of finding work, and the role of support, including mutual support among the workers through an emergency fund they created and community connections.
Researchers have increasingly utilized photovoice with the promise of influencing policy and action, namely stating this happens through the dissemination of findings via an exhibit. While previous research indicates that photovoice exhibits can increase audience awareness and empathy, few studies actually evaluate or report how photovoice exhibits influence audience members. Furthermore, research is unclear on whether exhibits result in audience members taking action for social change. In response, a mixed methods study was conducted to explore if and how a photovoice exhibit influences audience members' empathy and willingness to take action. Following a virtual photovoice exhibit on the personal experiences of mothers of children with medical complexities, 96 audience members completed a 21-item survey consisting of closed and open-ended questions. Results highlight that viewing the photovoice exhibit increased audience members' understanding of and empathy toward the mothers. Furthermore, hearing the mothers' self-identified calls to passion increased audience members' awareness of the mothers' needs and informed what action they would take. Implications outline how photovoice exhibits can be used as a tool to increase empathy and spark the initial stages of social change.
