Facilitating Co-Design through Feedback Loops

Abstract

Community-Campus Partnerships for Health (CCPH) provides nuanced and skilled facilitation to support the third space of community-university partnerships to manage power dynamics and co-create collaborative spaces for productive conversation and problem-solving. CCPH positions the community as the first space, academia as the second space, and the partnership between the two as the third space to advance the partnership. Two case studies explore feedback loops as the generative, reflective, and cyclical mechanism that operates the third space. Feedback loops function differently depending on the context of the partnership dynamic, and these case studies describe feedback loops as user testing to ensure a toolkit satisfies the needs of the end users, and as strategic planning to guide the development of a community-centered leadership course. In community-university partnerships, feedback loops can be used as a tool to disrupt dominant processes for meaning and knowledge making by redefining the power dynamics for cross-sector partnerships, enacting diverse ways of knowing and being, and modeling collaborative practice and transparent communication.