An artice I published about the risks of community coalition work.
http://www.madinamerica.com/20...k-damages-advocates/
The research mentions several types of community engagements and several types of projects. The projects that were most similar to community resilience projects actually did the most damage to advocates. (consultation style and topic related). The main three research articles I cite in this post are attached below. The main issues are:
1) people from marginalized communities get beat up and ignored in meeting style processes
2) community engagement does not happen by magic, there needs to be a budget, plans, prep work, training, and time allocated for effective community engagement
3) communities that were not included in overall project planning may or may not actually benefit from the project planned
4) inexperienced advocates with zero connection to the advocacy community can't actually be exchanged for experienced advocates. Ie. Closeted mental health professionals are not neccessarily a decent representative for people in recovery.
A trauma informed project should know how traumatizing it is to be blown off and told it's your fault that you are not being heard. That you "should have asked nicer."
Coalition work damages advocates, the research is clear. Don't be that guy. Add good community engagement to your programs, please. It takes careful planning, budgeting, and infrastructure. Don't expect it to happen by magic. Don't set advocates up for failure.