Beyond the Toolkit: Community-Engagement in COVID-19

We are a team of community-based and academic community-engaged practitioners who have been interested in creating dialogue about facilitation, participatory design and social justice across a number of fields: participatory research, community arts, participatory visual methods, and community facilitation. We are particularly interested in learning how community-engaged practitioners have adapted their participatory work to online and remote settings, as a result of COVID-19, and the unique ethical and pedagogical challenges that arise.

This illustrated web-resource (www.beyondthetoolkit.com) shares findings, resources and illustrations as informed by a pilot study and virtual event series, "Community Engagement in COVID-19".

Our goal is to support community-engaged practitioners in reflecting on, and adapting their facilitation practice to online and/or remote settings. While we dream of gathering in-person again, we hope that these resources may help practitioners navigate the opportunities and tensions of hosting community-engaged gatherings, meetings, and workshops online and remotely, as we weather the storms of COVID-19.

Community-Engagement in Covid-19: Exploring online and remote pedagogies amongst practitioners

Early on during the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us struggled with how to build, maintain or sustain pre-existing relationships, partnerships or community-engaged projects in ethical ways. Since we were not able to gather in-person, many community-engaged workshops, projects, and meetings  moved online, or to phone or messaging apps. Other projects adapted to mail or drop-off delivery.

As practitioners, we were encountering unique ethical and pedagogical challenges in moving our work online, or to remote settings. Resources for online learning in secondary or post-secondary institutions have different goals, aims and institutional contexts. Similarly, research literature and ethics boards are not attuned to the unique issues of participatory research, where there is a strong emphasis on the process of doing work together, in a good way.

At the same time, we were impressed by the resourcefulness of many practitioners who were working alongside communities to develop new ways of maintaining connections during a challenging time, marked by multiple pandemics and inequities.  

We reached out to our networks. We invited 31 community artists, community facilitators, participatory researchers and participatory visual methods practitioners across Canada into dialogue. Together, over the fall and early winter of 2021, we hosted a series of focus groups with other community-engaged practitioners. We discussed the ethical commitments  guiding our work, the opportunities and tensions of adapting participatory, community-based approaches online, and the unique ethical issues or "lived tensions" which arise. We also hosted public events to bring students,  community-engaged practitioners, and faculty into dialogue.

Study Findings

Ethical Commitments

Pedagogical Considerations, Practices and Strategies

Ethical Considerations

Recommendations and Support

To learn more about the team, and study partners, please visit the website. For questions about the study, please contact sarah.switzer@utoronto.ca