Community Engagement Specialist

Community Engagement Specialist - VICTR

The Community Engagement Specialist will work within a team of professionals in the Recruitment Innovation Center to build and support community engagement relationships and outreach. This position will work extensively in the areas of community and patient recruitment, as well as research team support and consultation. The main goals of the Community Engagement Specialist are to work collaboratively with and through groups of people affiliated by geographic proximity, special interests, or similar situations to address issues affecting the wellbeing of those people. The Community Engagement Specialist also builds trust, enlists new resources and allies, creates better communication, and improves overall health outcomes as successful projects evolve into lasting collaborations.

Key Responsibilities

• Actively participates in the Recruitment Innovation Center consultation process including community engagement outreach.
• Identifies potential community partners and partnerships through appropriate networks, associations, and leaders.
• Plans and implements community engagement outreach and relationship building, including recruiting community/patient stakeholders, data collection, reporting and follow-up with participants.
• Practices the community engagement outreach and relationship building model through participation in CTSA regional and local trainings.
• Identifies and builds professional relationships with local and national community-based organizations that have an interest in building academic-community research partnerships.
• Brings researchers and community partners together to share their knowledge, skills and resources with a common goal of improving community health.

• Develops and implements social media recruitment plans for community/patient experts by utilizing multi-tiered and culturally tailored materials and messaging.
• Educates the community on the study before recruiting for participating.
• Ensures researchers effectively engage with key community stakeholders to identify research questions and produce results that are relevant to the community.
• Participates in community events and activities. Invests in the community and leverages relationships in order to build trust, enlist new resources and allies, and create better communication, with the overall goal of improving overall health outcomes.

• Performs data collection through gathering and measuring information on variables of interest.
• Analyzes data by inspecting, cleaning, transforming, and modeling research data with the goal of highlighting useful information, suggestion conclusions, and supporting decision making.
• Utilizes multiple strategies to disseminate research findings, illustrates the impact of research, and meets the needs of both the researcher and the community. Shares knowledge by an appropriate means (e.g. publications, conferences, workshops, web-based activities, etc.).
• Makes sure that information is disseminated back to all levels of the community/clinic organization. Inquire about their preferred method (e.g., community forums, reports, web-based, etc.), and makes sure data are translated into the preferred language of the community.

• Consults and advises researchers, clinical providers and community organizations who are interested in incorporating community engagement research principles in a new or ongoing project.
• Consults and advises on topics including education on community engagement research principles; identifying and developing community partnerships; methods for effective collaboration throughout the research process; community engagement research methodology and results dissemination; and ethical issues in community engaged research.
• Contributes to community and researcher education and outreach activities via collaboration innovation webinars and other forums.
• Identifies and builds professional relationships with local and national community-based organizations that have an interest in building academic-community research partnerships.
• Facilitates conversations between diverse groups of community/patients and research teams around sensitive topics of health and healthcare.

The Vanderbilt Institute for Clinical & Translational Research (VICTR) is Vanderbilt's virtual home for clinical and translational research. Supported by Vanderbilt University Medical Center's Office of Research and the NIH-sponsored Clinical and Translational Service Award (CTSA), the mission of the institute is to transform the way ideas and research discoveries make their way from origin to patient care. VICTR functions to help researchers and clinicians do their jobs better by providing tools and support to improve the quality of research, publications, grant writing, and training for future doctors and researchers. For more information, please visit https://victr.vumc.org/ .

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