Community Engagement
Social Services Partnership
Focus groups of not only local government or social service organizations, but residents from the HEARR region to better imagine how collaboration between communities could be implemented in terms of social services. PRESENTATION
Transit and Telemedicine Partnership
Imagine that your only source of transportation required you to rely on someone else. PRESENTATION
Faith Coordination for Health
“I'm hopeful about all that I think as we come out of the pandemic, as we create those relationships there will be opportunities that naturally present themselves for working together.” PRESENTATION
Creating Community Engagement in Scottsville
How can we facilitate and support different viewpoints without fueling conflict, while creating an equitable process? PRESENTATION
Proposal for Support of an Existing Community-Engaged Course --E. Franklin Dukes, Ph.D.
PLAC 5240, "Collaborative Planning for Sustainability: Equitable Collaboration," is a 3-credit graduate course in the School of Architecture. The class proposes that communities can be made more equitable, resilient, and sustainable by active participation of community members practicing collective caring and self-governance. Students develop confidence in their ability to understand complex community issues, to assess the strengths and weaknesses of existing community decision processes, and to design and conduct equitable collaboration including authentic community meetings, transformative community dialogues, and powerful community collaborative change processes.
HEARR (Health Equity and Access in Rural Regions) is a group of community members who have come together with the goal of improving the health and well-being of residents in Southern Albemarle, Buckingham, Fluvanna, and Nelson counties. I have been working with them since early 2018. I have had two class projects with HEARR in prior years, including the development of a mindfulness curriculum that is currently being implemented.
​
For the Fall 2022 class, HEARR proposes to develop relationships with regional organizations to expand the Healthy Lifestyle Educational project which is currently being developed in partnership with Virginia Cooperative Extension, the Yancey Food Pantry Project, and the Yancey Community Center. Other partners include the Blue Ridge Health District and Albemarle County Parks & Recreation.
Students will work with the HEARR Board to clarify project goals, conduct interviews with key regional parties, and develop an equitable collaboration plan for action. They will attend meetings and community events as part of the outreach.
This proposal has the enthusiastic endorsement of the cochairs, Peggy Scott, RN, Esmont, and Nancy Gill, former mayor, Scottsville. The full Board will be discussing and offering a formal endorsement of the project at its next meeting on April 12.
​
The final class video of projects is below.