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A Comprehensive Library of Community-Engaged Research Resources - Library

August 28, 2025

Explore the Library

This section brings together a wide range of resources from our team to support community-engaged research (CEnR). You can search and filter resources by:

Spectrum: Informed, Consulted, Involved, Collaborative, or Empowered
Stage: Partner, Plan, Implement, Analyze, or Share
Project: Learn from example CEnR projects that demonstrate different levels of partnership

Learn more about the projects featured in this library on the “Welcome” page.

Six Strategies for Engaging Rural Communities in Teen Pregnancy Prevention Research and Programming

This brief outlines practical approaches for engaging rural communities in teen pregnancy prevention research and programming.

Safety 7: Train Researchers and Community Partners

Details how the Safety 7 were trained in research ethics and facilitation through interactive sessions, ensuring they were prepared to lead focus groups and interviews responsibly and effectively.

Safety 7: Define Roles, Expectations, and Engagement Processes

Shares how the Safety 7 built a strong foundation by establishing shared norms, clarifying roles, and engaging youth researchers in team-building, trauma-informed care, and youth-led research processes.

Safety 7: Prepare Data Collection Structures

Highlights how the Safety 7 secured IRB approval, set up secure systems, and created youth-informed recruitment strategies and consent processes to support ethical, community-centered data collection.

Safety 7: Identify Partners

Explains how Child Trends and Sasha Bruce Youthwork co-designed the Safety 7 project, jointly recruited youth researchers from Wards 7 and 8 in D.C., and established structures for shared leadership and collaboration.

Safety 7: Securing Project Funding

Outlines how Child Trends and Sasha Bruce Youthwork developed a detailed budget, secured NIJ funding, and created contracts, agreements, and compensation structures to support youth-led research and partner contributions.

Safety 7: Design Research with Community

Describes how the Safety 7 led every step of the study design—from identifying research questions to developing qualitative and quantitative tools—grounded in their lived experiences and priorities.

Safety 7: Collect Qualitative Data

Describes how the Safety 7 co-led focus groups and interviews with community members, using safety protocols, consent procedures, and support resources to guide conversations on community violence.

Safety 7: Recruit and Compensate Participants

Shares how the Safety 7 used targeted recruitment methods and distributed e-gift card incentives to honor participant time and support broad engagement.

AM-ME: Analyze Quantitative Data

Explains how the AM-ME survey was validated using descriptive statistics, factor analysis, and Rasch analysis to measure student engagement accurately and reliably across groups.

Safety 7: Analyze Qualitative Data

Details how the Safety 7 were trained in data cleaning, coding, and theme development using Dedoose, playing a central role in shaping the codebook and reviewing application of codes.

Safety 7: Analyze Quantitative Data

Outlines how adult facilitators used descriptive statistics from the online screener to summarize participant demographics, community violence exposure, and perceptions of safety to contextualize qualitative findings with the Safety 7.

Safety 7: Collect Quantitative Data

Explains how the Safety 7 co-led a screener survey to gather data on community violence exposure, safety perceptions, mental health, and community strengths from participants across Wards 7 and 8.

Safety 7: Turn Findings into Action

Shares how the youth researchers led community hackathons, storytelling efforts, and meetings with local leaders to transform research findings into practical, community-driven actions for safety and well-being.

Safety 7: Plan to Share Findings

Describes how the Safety 7 designed a dissemination strategy—including in-person and virtual data walks, visual materials, social media, and a digital report—to share findings in accessible, engaging ways with community members and decisionmakers.

Safety 7: Interpret Findings

Highlights how the Safety 7 led four working sessions to refine codes, select quotes, synthesize themes, and integrate qualitative and quantitative data into shared research findings.

AM-ME: Train Researchers and Community Partners

Highlights how the AM-ME Research Group were trained in research ethics, facilitation, and survey administration so they could actively lead and support data collection.

AM-ME: Collect Quantitative Data

Outlines how the AM-ME survey was developed and refined over three years using student and practitioner input to measure math engagement across multiple dimensions.

AM-ME: Plan to Share Findings

Explains how the AM-ME Research Group worked together to decide what to share, who to share it with, and how to create accessible and meaningful materials.

AM-ME: Turn Findings into Action

Describes how the AM-ME Research Group used research results to inform professional development and support school-based action planning driven by students and teachers.

AM-ME: Research Group Meetings for Partner

Explains how the project built strong relationships with the AM-ME Research Group, setting shared expectations and structures for ongoing collaboration.

AM-ME: Research Group Meetings for Plan

Describes how the AM-ME Research Group co-developed project goals, research questions, and data collection methods with student and teacher partners.

AM-ME: Research Group Meetings for Implement

Covers how the AM-ME Research Group were trained, supported data collection, and helped shape implementation activities throughout the project.

AM-ME: Research Group Meetings for Analyze

Highlights how the the AM-ME Research Group worked together to interpret survey and focus group results, connect data to their experiences, and identify themes.

AM-ME: Research Group Meetings for Share

Shows how the AM-ME Research Group guided decisions on what findings to share, how to share them, and with whom, turning data into action.

YEP: Design Research with Community

Explains how the YEP Research Group refined research questions, selected participants, and co-developed interview tools to study youth engagement in policy change.

YEP: Identify Partners

Explains how the team selected five grantee organizations with strong youth policy engagement practices and recruited youth-adult pairs from each to join the research group.

AM-ME: Identify Partners

Explains how the team built the AM-ME Research Group by partnering with a school district and working closely with principals to identify and invite student and teacher participants.

AM-ME: Securing Project Funding

Describes how the team developed a detailed and flexible budget to support collaborative research, including compensation, travel, dissemination, and infrastructure costs.

YEP: Securing Project Funding

Outlines how the team built a detailed project budget, secured grant funding, and compensated all contributors, including youth and practitioners, as contractors or partners in the research.

AM-ME: Define Roles, Expectations, and Engagement Processes

Outlines how the team created a strong collaborative foundation through individualized onboarding, group norm setting, and team-building activities that emphasized shared ownership.

YEP: Define Roles, Expectations, and Engagement Processes

Describes how the team built trust and structure with youth and adult partners through individualized onboarding, group norm setting, and feedback loops to support meaningful collaboration.

AM-ME: Design Research with Community

Explains how the AM-ME Research Group collaboratively refined research questions and co-developed data collection tools using both qualitative and quantitative methods.

YEP: Prepare Data Collection Structures

Outlines how team managed data collection logistics and obtained an IRB exemption due to the project’s focus on organizational examples rather than personal data.

AM-ME: Prepare Data Collection Structures

Details how the team established protocols, consent processes, and secure systems to manage data collection safely and effectively in collaboration with partners.

YEP: Recruit and Compensate Participants

Explains how the YEP Research Group members led outreach to interviewees and how participants were compensated after participating in interviews.

AM-ME: Recruit and Compensate Participants

Explains the AM-ME Research Group led recruitment and how participants were compensated for their time participating in the study’s interviews, focus groups, and surveys.

AM-ME: Collect Qualitative Data

Describes how the AM-ME Research Group designed and carried out interviews and focus groups that students experience math engagement.

YEP: Collect Qualitative Data

Describes how the YEP Research Group co-developed interview protocols to explore roles, structures, and outcomes of youth engagement in policy change efforts.

AM-ME: Analyze Qualitative Data

Describes how the team coded and interpreted student and teacher interviews and focus groups to develop a culturally grounded understanding of math engagement.

YEP: Analyze Qualitative Data

Explains how Child Trends staff analyzed interview and document data using a collaboratively developed codebook, with research group members reviewing themes and helping refine interpretations.

AM-ME: Interpret Findings with Community

Highlights how the AM-ME Research Group analyzed and made sense of the data, shaping survey revisions and strengthening how the findings were used.

YEP: Interpret Findings with Community

Describes how the YEP Research Group worked together to make sense of the data, refine themes, and co-develop conclusions and recommendations for authentic youth engagement in policy.

YEP: Design Framework with Community

Describes how the YEP Research Group worked together to refine a framework for authentic youth engagement in policy by integrating existing research with their lived experiences and insights.

YEP: Plan to Share Findings

Describes how the YEP Research Group co-developed individual organization profiles, a summary report, and a webinar to share findings.

A Practical Guide to Getting Started With Community-Engaged Research

This guide provides an overview of community-engaged research principles and practices, offering actionable steps for developing shared goals, building trust, and working across differences in research partnerships.

A Toolkit for Using Protective Community Resources to Promote Child, Youth, and Family Well-being

This toolkit offers research findings, practical guidance, and tools to help researchers and community leaders identify, map, and expand protective community resources, especially for Black children, youth, and families.

Recommendations From North Carolina on Family Engagement and Leadership in Early Care and Education

This resource shares key findings and recommendations from North Carolina’s early childhood system to help organizations meaningfully engage families as leaders in early care and education.

Equitable Community Research Partnerships Power Long-lasting Change

This brief and videos shares how we partnered with community co-researchers from seven cultural and language communities in New Hampshire to co-lead a statewide early childhood research effort, showing how shared decision-making and community-led inquiry can build trust, shape services, and spark lasting change.

Sustaining Students and Teachers as Change Agents in a Research-Practice Partnership

This case study details how a research-practice partnership supported students and teachers to co-lead educational change by sharing decision-making power, building trust, and centering mutual learning.

Using Photos to Capture Young Adults’ Experiences with Positive Youth Development

This resource highlights how photo voice methods can engage young adults in sharing their experiences and perspectives, offering a powerful tool for understanding and supporting their development.

Incorporating Community-Engaged Research Methods in the Federally Funded MIECHV COVID-19 Health Equity Project

This brief describes how we worked alongside parents, home visitors, and community researchers to shape study design, data collection, and dissemination in ways that honored community knowledge and improved research quality.

The Importance of Participatory Approaches in Precision Home Visiting Research

This brief explains how engaging families, providers, and other stakeholders throughout the research process strengthens home visiting studies by building trust, improving relevance, and promoting better outcomes through shared decision-making and community responsive practices.

Toolkit for Engaging Partners in Precision Home Visiting Research

This toolkit provides practical guidance and templates to help researchers engage families, providers, and other key partners throughout all stages of precision home visiting research, from setting goals and building relationships to maintaining engagement and evaluating its impact.

An Introduction to Culturally Responsive Evaluation for Healthy Marriage and Relationship Education Programs

This brief introduces culturally responsive evaluation as a framework to align evaluation activities with the cultural context of Healthy Marriage and Relationship Education programs, offering guidance for incorporating community voices and addressing power dynamics throughout the evaluation process.