About us
The Community Participation team is a partnership between Somerset Council, Spark Somerset, and academic staff. We work together to support research and evaluation with Somerset communities.
Our Goals
- Equal Partners: Local communities work as equals with Somerset Council.
- Collective Strength: We combine our knowledge, skills, and expertise to make positive changes.
- Creating Knowledge: We create new knowledge and findings that help our communities.
- Improving Lives: We make recommendations to improve community health and wellbeing.
- Continuous Improvement: We listen, learn, and work together to keep getting better.
Our Approach
Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) is a way of doing research where everyone works together as equals. Communities, researchers, and other stakeholders work together from start to finish. They identify problems, design projects, collect data, and find solutions together. This makes sure the research is relevant to communities, builds on their strengths, and benefits them.
Somerset HDRC listens to your training and development needs to help you co-produce research and evaluation with communities as equal partners.
Join our mailing list for training, resources, networking, partnering, and collaboration opportunities.
Contact Alex at alexandria.hewitt@somerset.gov.uk for more information or use our HDRC Support Request Form to send an enquiry to Somerset HDRC.