Positionality Statement
We believe it is important to begin by reflecting on how our identities may shape our worldviews, and thus our opinions and experiences presented in this paper. The primary author is an independent consultant whose areas of interest include systems change and the disruption of traditional evaluation and applied research methodologies through the radical implementation of DEIJ practices in evaluation and research practices. She identifies as white, a first-generation college graduate, disabled, neurodiverse, queer, and genderqueer. The second author is a graduate student whose work and passion is centered on partnering with communities utilizing community-based participatory research to address health disparities and promote systems change. She identifies as a white, married, cisgender woman who is a first-generation college graduate from a low-income background. The third author is a writing consultant who is particularly interested in writing projects that advance the goals of DEIJ. They are white, non-binary, and queer. The fourth author is a junior evaluation associate whose passion includes data analytics in the human service fields. They are Southeast Asian, non-binary, and queer.
Our authors all have lived experiences with systemic oppression due to their identities as women, nonbinary/queer, and/or BIPOC. This experience informs our work, which tries to address deeply rooted (systemic) societal issues. Our paper delves into colonialism and white supremacy and its relationship to community-based research and evaluation, and we understand that our perspectives have limits due to the positionality of three of our authors as white/settlers. As a result, we have approached this paper thoughtfully, remaining critically aware of the limitations of our positionalities.
The Limits of Participatory Research Methods
Participatory research methodologies[1] have a community-centric philosophical orientation dedicated to improving the lives of individuals and their communities (Noffke, 1995). Participatory research first emerged to counter “exploitative research practices of outsiders who have used communities as laboratories” (Cahill, 2007, p. 362). Instead, participatory research methodologies are centered on a collaborative research approach that involves community members throughout all aspects of the research and evaluative process and aims to co-create knowledge and action while empowering communities to address community needs. Although participatory research methodologies are seen as bringing an added level of community centricity and social justice to research and evaluative practices, employing these methods does not make practitioners immune from causing harm. As such, the misuse of participatory research methodologies by researchers—for example, claiming to use participatory research methodologies but failing to include community members meaningfully in the research and evaluative process, as well as the institutional systems and norms that house participatory research methodologies—all have the potential to cause community harm.
Prior literature has documented the shortcomings of participatory research across all stages of the research and evaluative process. For example, at the project conceptualization stage of research, Openjuru and colleagues (2015) noted how community members are often not provided the opportunity to define the problem that is the project’s focus. Despite being rooted in a particular participatory research methodology, how issues are selected to be addressed and how they are addressed is often pre-defined by institutions and researchers. Relatedly, communities are expected to work within the constraints of the researcher’s work (i.e., grant funding), which can also set preconditions or increase the potential for community harm. Community members are often brought into the research or evaluative process, as needed, to suit researcher and institutional goals, thus perpetuating the status quo of both institutions and communities. At the data collection stage, community partners are typically not involved in selecting data collection methodologies that they feel are best suited for the community in question, preventing the integration of community partner perspective and voice into all aspects of the research process as intended by participatory research models (Minkler, 2004). During data analysis, the interpretation of results can center researchers’ perspectives even within participatory research projects, despite their intentions to center communities’ perspectives (Minkler, 2004). Echoing a similar sentiment, Lake and Wendland (2018) postulate that researchers must “negotiate the analysis and meaning of any findings produced” to ensure that community voice is integrated (p. 18). Lastly, at the dissemination stage, despite the intent of participatory research methodologies to ensure community member involvement in every aspect of the research or evaluative process, community members are commonly excluded from presentations and authorship opportunities in publications.
These described limitations of participatory research exist and persist because researchers, evaluators, practitioners, and communities at the center of projects operate within and are affected by broader societal systems that impact every aspect of this work. Systems like white supremacy, racism, and ongoing colonization, are so powerful and deeply entrenched and despite the best intentions of researchers and evaluators, this research can inadvertently cause harm. Colonialism, although some may see it as a historical occurrence, is an ongoing process that affects every aspect of society: “Colonialism is a form of temporally extended domination by people over other people and as such part of the historical universe of forms of intergroup domination, subjugation, oppression, and exploitation” (Ziltener & Künzler, 2013, p. 291). Intrinsically tied to colonialism, whiteness and its positionality of primacy in our social order impacts everything we do as researchers and evaluators. Whiteness is not simply an identity marker but is rooted in power, both historically and presently:
Whiteness is a metaphor for power, a proxy for racially distributed material benefits, a synonym for ‘white supremacy,’ an epistemological stance defined by power, position of invisibility or ignorance, and a set of beliefs about racial ‘Others’ and oneself that can be rejected through ‘treason’ to a racial category. (Wildman, 2005, p. 246)
Despite researchers and evaluators being uniquely positioned to conduct healing and restorative work in partnership with communities, harm can instead be perpetuated by upholding conventional colonial and white supremacist norms in evaluation and research methodologies.
The harm inflicted by these systems extends to the field of community psychology (CP) itself, from which participatory research methodologies were derived (Wallerstein, 2021). Beals et al. (2021) explain that “…community psychology, as it was established, is a part of the imperialist empire–a mainstream academic discipline” (p. 6) This view is supported by Tran (2023), who states that CP “has a flawed history where notions of Euro-centrism and white supremacy was not interrogated sufficiently and thereby launched CP into many decades of reproducing a masked version of White privilege and Eurocentric epistemologies and general ways of being” (p. 2). Beals et al. (2021) postulate that although the field is deeply embedded in white supremacist values, through acknowledgment and action, it is possible for CP to “align with current sovereignty and liberation movements” (pp. 5–6).
Further complicating the decolonization and democratization of participatory research is its failure to address systemic issues affecting communities, which are not given the much-needed attention they demand. Brydon-Miller and colleagues (2003) speak to the tenuous relationship between action research and social change, given the localism inherent in participatory research methodologies. This localism results in action research that often takes place on a case-by-case basis, attuning itself to local contexts but ultimately failing to extend beyond that local context to address more systemic issues and evoke large-scale social change. Lykes and Mallona (2008) have also noted that despite the efforts of participatory research projects, it is not often that participatory research methodologies result in sustained systems change (e.g., policy and organizational change) given that said issues are often deeply entrenched in colonization and white supremacist ideologies. As such, the common dismissal of systems change within participatory research practices inadvertently creates community harm as it avoids the reality that social issues not systematically addressed often endure. As Burns (2007) puts it, action research must interact with broader ethics and “get to grips with complex dynamics of ‘messy reality’ in order to impact real, intractable social injustices” (pp. 17–18). Thus, while many researchers and evaluators believe participatory research methodologies hold the potential to both democratize and decolonize the production of knowledge by engaging communities in research projects, there are colonial and white supremacy-driven power dynamics at play between researchers, evaluators, institutions, and community members that can go unacknowledged and result in community harm.
It is also important to understand how harm is typically assessed within community-based research. Traditionally, in higher education institutions, the accountability for harm lies within the responsibility of Institutional Review Boards (IRBs). IRBs were historically put in place because of harm inflicted through research practices and were designed to protect the human rights of research participants (Maxwell, 2019). However, the IRB process has been critiqued as being top-down in assessing harm. Cahill (2007) describes how the ethics of IRBs are subject to debate and critique, with some researchers suggesting that IRBs’ priorities have shifted to prioritizing institutions from liability and risk. Additionally, because IRBs are grounded in the medical model, they are not well-suited to evaluate participatory research methodologies. The medical model describes health as the absence of disease and positions the treatment of symptoms through medical interventions and procedures. At its core, the model centers causation and remediation in a medical context, originating from rationalism and our scientifically situated Western society (Veatch, 1973). While IRBs are diagnostic tools used in research to protect “subjects,” they do not capture the nuance of the power relationships between “researcher” and “subject,” nor how broader systemic issues affect research (e.g., researcher bias rooted in racism) and thus IRBs miss many layers of harm that can occur in research (and evaluation). Particularly, IRBs may lack an understanding of community-based research and evaluation practices, which can be especially challenging for participatory research projects given their situation in a community context (Cahill, 2007). IRBs can be extremely limited in assessing non-medical, community-based harm, which places researchers and evaluators in positions of being unaware or ignoring harm, feeling unequipped to address harm, or attempting to address harm with little support or instruction.
The inherent harmful practices that exist within IRB practices and participatory research methodologies, in conjunction with participatory research’s common failure to address systemic issues, pose challenges for researchers and evaluators who want to conduct participatory research rooted in diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (Garcia & McGee, 2023; McGee, 2022). Thus, researchers and evaluators need to identify and challenge how participatory research methodologies are inherently harmful and how the misuse of participatory research methodologies may also perpetuate harm. The first and second authors of this paper led a Town Hall at the 2022 American Evaluation Association Annual Conference (facilitated by McGee) and the 2023 Society for Community Research and Action Biennial Conference (facilitated by McGee and Garcia). Both conferences convened researchers, educators, evaluators, students, and practitioners with lived experience implementing or engaging in participatory research across various sectors and fields to discuss the inherent harm in participatory research and evaluation, as well as the identification of opportunities for healing and restorative practices in this work (Garcia & McGee, 2023; McGee, 2022). A Town Hall process involves one or more facilitators who lead a dialogue on a particular topic or issue. Attendees identified examples of harm that can be inherent in participatory research and community-based evaluation. Examples included individual-level harm (e.g., failure to compensate or adequately compensate project participants for their time and expertise as part of a project) as well as systemic harm (e.g., not acknowledging the harm that researchers can do and have done in communities, for example, the Tuskegee study). Challenges to implementing DEIJ, trauma-informed participatory research, and community-based evaluation were identified across all stages of the research and evaluation process. Attendees were also asked to brainstorm opportunities for healing and restorative work within the participatory research and community-based evaluation process. Discussion notes were taken in real time on poster paper and displayed around the room so that responses were visible to participants. Each paper represented a different component (or element) of the research or evaluative process (i.e., project conceptualization, data collection, data analysis, report writing, and data dissemination). The Town Hall was facilitated so that unstructured dialogue was encouraged, especially as participants purported that many examples of harm and ideas for healing and restorative work were not unique to any one specific component of the research (or evaluative) process, but rather represented broad ideas relevant to all components of the research and evaluation process. At the end of each session, facilitators shared details of their process with session attendees, which involved cleaning up and analyzing the poster paper notes. Participants interested in receiving a summary of the clean and analyzed chart paper notes were asked to share their email addresses with facilitators. Subsequently, summaries of the identified themes were shared through email with all participants who provided email addresses to session facilitators.
Poster paper notes were analyzed after the sessions using an open coding approach (Williams & Moser, 2019), which involves examining responses and “identifying distinct concepts and themes for categorization” (p. 48). Participants’ responses and, by extension, the creation of themes, were considered under each component of the research or evaluative process. Additionally, responses not unique to any specific component of the research (or evaluative) process were labeled “overarching” as they were thematically cross-cutting. This resulted in five broad categorizations: 1) project conceptualization; 2) data collection; 3) data analysis; 4) report writing; and 5) data dissemination. Next, themes related to harm were identified and concrete examples were provided for each theme. These research-specific themes included prioritization of research goals over community needs (conceptualization); intrusive methods of collecting data that are not DEIJ or trauma-informed in nature (data collection); lack of community-centricity in data analysis processes (data analysis); and failure to utilize findings to achieve community betterment (data dissemination and use). Additionally, the following themes related to harm were identified as being overarching: a lack of researcher awareness and acknowledgement of inherent harm, existing research systems, practices and norms, restrictive funding requirements and norms (Garcia & McGee, 2023; McGee, 2022). Table 1 summarizes the themes by categorizations: project conceptualization, data collection, data analysis, report writing, data dissemination, and overarching. This summary reflects the data around harm from both sessions.
Strategies to Address Applied Research (and Evaluation) Generated Harm
Given the inherent harm that exists in the work of applied research and evaluation, we believe a different approach to participatory research is required if we want to truly operate in a DEIJ-informed manner that reduces harm to communities. The authors have engaged in community-based research projects and observed the harm inflicted by the misuse of conventional participatory research methods when partnering with communities. Although participatory research methodologies are gradually changing from a “tool for colonization and oppression” to a tool to restore cultures, overcome the impacts of colonialism, and provide a spotlight on different perspectives (Smith, 2005, p. 91), there is still critical work that is needed to make fundamental systemic changes to participatory research methods and facilitate harm reduction in our work. Tran (2023) proposes the following to address the harm inherent in the field of community psychology and to facilitate related healing and restorative work:
We return to the community. To restore humanity to all parties in this interaction, those who inherently hold power must acknowledge the power and privileges they hold, reject the power, and return to the community to truly and honestly work together side-by-side… White CPs must allow this healing and acknowledgment process to occur in a meaningful way that prioritizes the suffering of Black and non-Black CPs of Color. (p. 6)
Lake & Wendland (2018) stress the importance of applied researchers (and evaluators) exploring their positionality and power and how both intersect with their work, and importantly, pose the following question about power and community engagement in research practices: “Are engaged researchers yielding control, delegating power, and partnering, or placating, consulting, informing, or even manipulating?” (p. 23). Furthermore, according to Gergen et al. (2015), the process and goals of applied research should simultaneously improve the community, distribute power, and subvert harmful norms. Levitt et al. (2017) introduce the concept of “methodological integrity,” which posits that research should center the goals of promoting social justice or social transformation by integrating these specific goals into a study’s research design. These notions challenge traditional processes of community-based research conceptualization, even participatory research, where the topic and scope of the research are often pre-defined and pre-determined by the researchers and the institutions in which they operate.
To make these changes, applied researchers (and evaluators) need to meaningfully place the voices of marginalized people and communities at the forefront of the work while concurrently challenging the systems founded on colonial and white supremacist ideologies that are responsible for continued marginalization and social injustice. Applied researchers (and evaluators) must understand that participatory processes do not involve superficial interactions with the community that give a fleeting feeling of collaboration, but instead interactions that facilitate meaningful participation, power, and partnership (Jackson, 2013). Jackson coined the term “Indigenous Research,” which involves the study of local context using “local language, local subjects, and locally meaningful constructs,” to test or build theories in a given community or “local social cultural context,” stressing the importance of engaging and centering community in defining research work, and argues that the most important voice in deciding the direction of the research are the desires of the community (pp. 16, 34).
Institution to Address Harm, Community Harm Risk Assessment (CHRA), and Community Harm Risk Assessment Review Board
The journey to create a more thoughtful paradigm for participatory research (and evaluative) practices began with a series of questions: 1) How are we holding ourselves accountable as community-based practitioners, researchers, and evaluators in our perpetuation of harm?; 2) How can we engage with communities in ways that do not cause harm at the individual or systemic level?; 3) How do we center community needs and benefits in our work?; 4) How do we thoughtfully approach our work knowing that communities have already experienced both research-related harm and non-research related harm?
In considering these questions over the last several years, four central needs to support harm reduction in participatory research practice, as well as other forms of community-based research and evaluation, were developed. In participatory research and evaluative practices, these include the need for:
- Harm Acknowledgement: Recognizing harm potential within the evaluation and research process (including practices and norms) from the outset and acknowledging our complicity in perpetuating harm on both individual and systemic levels. Acknowledge that leaving communities as we found them (i.e., status quo) may perpetuate existing inequities and should not be automatically classified as harm neutral.
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Harm Identification: Pinpointing specific instances or areas where harm may arise within projects (past, present, anticipated future) and should involve a clear recognition of the costs to communities, power imbalances, and inherent biases at play.
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Harm Reduction: Implementing greater structural accountability mechanisms and strategies to reduce or prevent harm, addressing root causes and proactively mitigating potential harm. Should include intentional reflective practice to learn from past and present harm occurrences to prevent harm recurrence proactively. Incorporate and elevate diverse areas of expertise (e.g., advocates, local community knowledge holders). Should prioritize community needs, foster trust, and integrate trauma- and DEIJ-informed approaches directly into harm reduction strategies.
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Harm Healing and Restorative Work: Engage in healing and restorative work where harm has transpired. Centering community needs and healing as they relate to the research, deprioritized institutional need, and neutralizing power dynamics to address identified insistences of harm occurrence (past, present, anticipated future) to individuals and communities.
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Harm Accountability: Involves personal and structural mechanisms for reflection and accountability and should involve concrete plans for change regarding harm reduction moving forward. Harm reduction accountability plans should be comprehensive in nature, including plans for harm reduction infrastructure (e.g., policy, processes, tools, training), and should be guided by a commitment to equity.
In response to the need for further harm acknowledgement, harm identification, harm reduction, and harm accountability in the field, the first author seeks to develop a Center focused on elevating the need for harm acknowledgment, harm identification, harm reduction and harm accountability in community-based research and evaluation. The Center will provide consultation support to research and evaluation teams wishing to prioritize harm reduction in their community-based work.
The development of the community-harm risk assessment (CHRA) tool is grounded in the aforementioned need for greater harm acknowledgment, harm identification, harm reduction, and harm accountability in participatory research and evaluative practice, as well as the perspective that harm can be inherent in our research (and evaluative) practices and norms, and can be inflicted directly on individuals and communities through our engagement with them in the research and evaluation process. As such, two key categorizations of harm were identified. Category one is Research and Evaluation Practice Norms, which considers individual and community harm experienced through the research (or evaluation), and acknowledges the role of systemic forces, such as colonial and white-supremacist-oriented systems and institutions that define applied research focus and scope, methodologies, outcomes, and practice norms. Category two is Community Engagement Practice Norms, which considers individual and community harm experienced through engagements with the community in the research (or evaluation) project and acknowledges the role of systemic forces, such as colonial and white-supremacist-oriented systems and institutions the define notions of power, expertise, professionalism, value, health, and wellness. Table 2 provides an overview of the CHRA reflective praxis guide. This tool is recommended for use before the commencement of a project and informs recommendations that will support the development of a Harm Reduction Plan for a given evaluation (or research) project.
Implementation of the Community Harm Risk Assessment (CHRA) Reflective Praxis Guide and Community Harm Risk Assessment Review Board (CHRARB)
The CHRA and CHRARB are resources that will be offered by the Center for use by research and evaluation teams to ensure harm reduction rooted in DEIJ- and trauma-informed practices. The CHRARB will be virtually based and as such will have the flexibility to offer services to practitioners, researchers, and evaluators (i.e., clients) throughout the United States and Canada.
CHRARB Composition
CHRARB membership is not static but is instead project dependent. Membership of the Board is tailored to the specific research or evaluation project in question. Broadly, CHRARB members for each project will be selected based on their expertise in the topic areas of the project, geographic location, and/or demographics of participants in the research or evaluation project. Their selection will be a collaboration between the Board and the Project Team. There may be instances where members of the research or evaluation team are from or identify with the target community, which offer extra checks and balances for the project as these individuals will have direct knowledge of community needs and goals. However, the CHRARB may actually be most beneficial when a researcher/research team is not from that community and thus bringing in the voices and perspectives of that community acts as a guiding force for the project. CHRARB tailoring is instituted to ensure that Board members are representative of the identities and experiences of the research or evaluation project’s participants and topic area. Because the CHRARB will be virtually based, the ability to tailor the Board in this way will be a feasible endeavor for the Center.
Board Selection and Expectations
In recognition that members of a community are not monolithic, the Center will conscientiously and strategically consider who decides—and ultimately gets to provide—commentary on a community’s needs, preferences, and strengths as well as identifying individual and community harm risks for a given research (or evaluation) project. Board members will be compensated and expectations for prospective CHRARB members will be clearly set, ensuring individuals asked to serve on the Board are both comfortable and confident to serve as an expert for a project. It is important to state that in the context of our Center we identify experts as (but not limited to): advocates, community knowledge holders, historical community knowledge holders (or social historians), and individuals with lived experience of relevance to a given project. Including advocates and individuals with lived experience is intentional as their experiences translate to expertise in understanding community needs and potential for harm and adamantly advocating for community needs and against harm.
The Center will also require that projects include at least one representative from the research or evaluation team to serve as the liaison with the Board throughout the project. However, it will be encouraged that the entire research or evaluation team be involved in the Center process. Additionally, the Center will set norms for CHRARB membership, requesting additional perspectives or insights outside of the membership when current members do not have the knowledge or experience to speak to a particular issue or identity. If there are circumstances where the need for a particular expertise arises during a project that is not well represented on the CHRARB, the Board may decide to recruit additional members or elect to have current Board members conduct outreach to other experts in order to bridge the identified gap.
CHRA Use and Implementation
It is recommended that teams engage with the CHRA before the commencement of a community-based research and/or evaluation project. The use of the CHRA will help to ensure harm acknowledgement, harm identification, harm reduction, healing and restorative work, and harm accountability practices are in place within a given participatory research (and evaluative) project, as well as ensure that harm is explored across two different categories. These areas of harm include the aforementioned: Category One: Research and Evaluation Practice Norm Harm, which is considered individual and community harm experienced through the research (or evaluation) and acknowledges the role of systemic forces from systems and institutions that define the applied research processes and norms and Category Two: Community Engagement Practice Norm Harm, which is the consideration of individual and community harm experienced through engagements with the community in the research (or evaluation) project and acknowledges the role of systems and institutions that define social and health norms. Research and/or evaluation teams will be encouraged to complete the CHRA (see Table 2) collaboratively as a group, and to use the questions as guidelines for exploration. It is important to note that the questions posed in the CHRA are not limiting, and that exploring other questions and methods that reduce harm are fully encouraged. The completion of this assessment will identify gaps in the project addressing needs related to: harm acknowledgment, harm identification, harm reduction, and harm accountability, as well as attention paid to both categorizations of harm.
CHRA Review and Recommendation Generation
When the research and/or evaluation team completes the CHRA, the CHRARB will review the CHRA results and provide recommendations for the project’s Harm Reduction Plan, which includes mechanisms for accountability to the plans for harm reduction. Research (and evaluation) teams will also be instructed to generate their own ideas for recommendations to bring to a preliminary meeting with the CHRARB. Project Teams will be provided with a Barriers to Harm Reduction and Strategies to Address Harm handout that will offer practical guidance and examples to support their generation of recommendations.
The preliminary meeting will be facilitated as a collaborative discussion between the Project Team and the CHRARB in which they will collaboratively share and generate recommendations for the Harm Reduction Plan. Discussion will take place to determine how the Project Team will move the Harm Reduction Plan forward, and if they need to fundamentally change research or evaluation plans based on the recommendations discussed as a group.
Facilitated Check-Ins
Additional check-in points throughout the project will also be required, as harm potential and risk can change throughout the course of a project. Specifically, the Board will recommend three check-ins throughout the research and/or evaluative process, which may vary depending on the research scope and length. At these times, the Board will ask for progress on how the Project Team is implementing, adhering to, and holding the Project Team accountable to the Harm Reduction Plan, as well as any related challenges or barriers to the work. Successes in implementation, adherence, and accountability as it relates to the Harm Reduction Plan will also be discussed. During these check-ins, it will be critical to assess new risks for harm that have emerged in the work, based on changes in scope, timelines, or general observations observed in the implementation of the work, and to update the Harm Reduction Plan, accordingly. These check-ins are designed to be highly participatory and collaborative in nature, non-punitive, and ultimately aimed at generating harm reduction strategies that are both important and feasible for the team.
Knowledge Development and Sharing
The final of the three check-ins will be for close-out and focus on the Board and research and/or evaluation team sharing lessons learned, what they would do the same, and what they would do differently. This collection of lessons learned will be documented by the Center to continue to support the development of a knowledge base for how to best facilitate harm reduction work. The Center is committed to continuously sharing lessons learned from this process to support others doing this work, whether through the Center or independently of the Center.
Fee for Service
Clients will pay a fee to use the service; this fee will ensure the Center staff and members of the CHRARB are compensated for the time they serve on the CHRARB. Potential practitioners, researchers, and evaluation teams will be encouraged to account for this fee in their budget during the project budgeting or grant application process in order to gain support for the CHRA at the onset of their project.
Limitations and Potential Challenges
It is important to note that harm reduction is an iterative and ongoing process. The CHRA guide is emphatically not signaling the end of this journey, rather it is just one step towards reducing the harm of research and evaluation practices. That is, through the application of the CHRA guided by the CHRARB, research and evaluation teams have the opportunity to receive feedback from representative Board members on the ways their project may cause community harm and recommendations for how to prevent such harm while still acknowledging the reality of institutional politics, budgets, and much more. As such, the intention is more to give the research and/or evaluation teams a thought partner (or critical friend) to think through harm reduction strategies with more intentionality and rigor. Altogether, the CHRA guide and related participatory process will encourage more radical participatory research in the following ways: 1) providing a structured process to acknowledge the existence of harm (or potential for harm) in participatory research (and evaluative) practice; 2) providing a structure to hold research teams accountable to harm reduction rooted in DEIJ and trauma-informed practices in participatory research (and evaluative) practices; and 3) serve as a space to collectively troubleshoot and address harm through the use of the CHRA guide and the CHRARB.
Practitioners and researchers (or evaluators) will face challenges when implementing the CHRA and the CHRARB. Monetary constraints will likely represent a primary challenge to implementing the CHRA tool with the support of the CHRARB. Costs will not only be associated with those involved in engaging the diverse membership of the CHRARB and their support, but also the time and personnel costs associated with pre-work recommended through the CHRA tool, including engaging community in the CHRA process, and relationship building in the community before the commencement of the project. The CHRA will also be made available as a free, standalone tool that teams can use to help identify harm in their work. This may alleviate some costs, but may also result in challenges related to Project Teams being able to convene the diverse perspectives and positionalities required for harm reduction work. It is also important to acknowledge that in implementing a new practice, a lack of buy-in from institutions, leadership, or funders may represent an inherent challenge. Institutions, leaders, and funders may not be inclined to pay for costs associated with this process and may not be receptive to the deeply community-centered approach of the CHRA, which positions community needs and interests over institutional interests. This centering of community may result in the research (or evaluation) project changing their focus and scope significantly, which may represent a significant paradigm shift for institutions, leaders, and funders.
Conclusion
A lack of acknowledgement of the harm caused through participatory research has created the urgency for a deep reckoning within our field, both personally and professionally. Whether harm is caused by malpractice or deeply entrenched systems rooted in colonialism and white supremacy, it is our obligation as the purveyors of community good to change how we do our work, perhaps fundamentally. Thus, this paper proposed the creation of a Community Harm Risk Assessment Review Board (CHRARB) with an accompanying Community Harm Risk Assessment (CHRA) reflective praxis guide, providing practitioners and applied researchers with practical steps in utilizing this radical participatory process aimed at reducing harm in community-based research and evaluation. The new structured practice we have proposed represents just one effort towards supporting more radical, participatory applied research and evaluation approaches. It is the hope that this approach will facilitate more conversations around harm acknowledgement, harm reduction, and restorative healing practices, which will in turn create more intentionality around harm reduction and healing in practices within the community-based research and evaluation field.