This blog post was contributed by Caprice Pybus, SFU co-op student librarian.

The Community Scholars Program is a collaboration of post-secondary university libraries that supports the research priorities of participants in the nonprofit and charitable sector.  Led by SFU Library, the program provides access to scholarly publications alongside librarian consultation and programming to Community Scholars doing critical work in areas like human rights, poverty alleviation, climate, health, community development, and anti-violence. 

We had the opportunity to speak with two Community Scholars from a non-profit organization about their recent experience about the program and how it contributes to their work. You can read our interview with Alice Xiao and Sarah Wright from the Ending Violence Association of BC below.

Meet Community Scholars Alice Xiao and Sarah Wright of the Ending Violence Association of BC 

The Ending Violence Association of BC (EVA BC) is a member organization based in Vancouver, Canada, on the unceded, ancestral, and traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. We support, train and advocate for anti-violence workers in close to 300 anti-violence programs across the province that respond to sexual and intimate partner violence, child abuse, and criminal harassment.

To ensure the best outcomes for survivors and promote social change, we work with cross-sectoral partners and other stakeholders to enhance community capacity and address gender-based violence, harassment and hate.

EVA BC believes that promoting visibility, inclusive programming, and trans-inclusive services is essential to the eradication of gender-based violence.

Alice Xiao (AX): I am the Program Coordinator of Provincial Services. My job includes coordinating training and projects and other initiatives that support the anti-violence programs served by EVA BC’s Provincial Services team. Having access to research helps to ensure the training curricula, resources, and materials that I support in developing are aligned with our values and best practices.

Sarah Wright (SW): I’m the Program Lead with Provincial Services, and recently have been working across our organization to move our Training Strategy forward. This means that I’ve been able to support with all the various types of training initiatives we do (and we do a lot!) Our training covers a wide span of audiences, including our member organizations (often, frontline anti-violence workers) and public education around gender-based violence prevention. This means that research is an integral part of what I do! It makes our work more effective, relevant and up to date.

The importance of community access to scholarly publications

AX: A lot of knowledge related to anti-violence work is produced with the contributions of the people who are navigating the impacts of violence with multiple barriers. 

Being mindful that anti-violence workers often face inadequate funding and don’t have the financial privilege to pay for post-secondary library access, community organizations should have access to scholarly publications because they play a key role in promoting the wellbeing and safety of the community.

SW: Like Alice is sharing, accessing scholarly publications can be challenging for organizations because of a lack of funding. Having access to research allows organizations to draw from sources to highlight and back up the work that they’re already doing, increasing their “credibility” and showing that their practices are grounded in research. 

Integrating front-line experience and scholarly research

AX: EVA BC's primary mandate is to support anti-violence workers. At times, we facilitate or co-facilitate research that benefits the sector and worker wellness.

SW: EVA BC represents a wealth of knowledge from frontline anti-violence workers, built through their challenging work and advocacy. I see this as its own “research” practice, tracing the challenges facing frontline workers or what they’re seeing on the ground with the people they work with. A lot of grassroots or frontline work might involve insights and knowledge that have yet to be incorporated into academic research.

Community Scholars Program reduces barriers to information access

AX: It reduces a lot of barriers for us. It made a huge difference for us to have access to journal articles, specifically in education, social work, social services, political science, and history areas. I feel more confident developing materials or researching knowing that I have access to SFU library resources through the Community Scholars Program.

SW: This access has been huge for us! I’ve been recently building a training around Anti-Racist Practice for Anti-Violence work and having access to this research has enhanced my work and supported in keeping it current. There has been a lot of publications and research around racism in the wake of the pandemic and accessing this has been so useful. I’ve also been able to share this knowledge with coworkers, reducing barriers across our organization. I know our work is better for it- and now I don’t have to limit myself to only articles published without a paywall! 

Connecting academic evidence and lived experience in community work 

AX: There is a will and interest to support the use of evidence-based practice in the field to ensure survivors and workers are being supported by data and recommendations that are clinically proven. In the meantime, it is important to note that there are various barriers for a piece of knowledge to be translated into a scholarly journal article. We have a lot of best practices and trauma-informed practices to guide our work but also understand that not all wisdom and knowledge in the community are being kept in a formal channel, but they could be highly regarded as best practices among the community members.

SW: Yes, I’d agree with Alice that a lot of the “evidence” can come from lived experience or is shaped from the knowledge held in communities. There’s sometimes a disconnect between this “evidence” and what is published or incorporated into research, a gap between knowledge that is practiced and enacted with survivors and with academic publications. Bridging this gap between two seemingly different types of evidence is crucial, both to enhancing academic research and to enhancing the practice of anti-violence work. In reducing the challenge of access, which is often tied to financial need, there’s an opportunity to make all our work more effective, current, and impactful. Ultimately, redefining “evidence-based” to include both academic research and community knowledge can lead to better support of survivors of violence and greater recognition of the skills of anti-violence workers.

Incorporating scholarly research to inform real-world decision making

SW: I’m constantly incorporating scholarly research in my work. Recently, we’ve been working on creating a handbook on responding to sexual violence for anti-violence workers. This handbook has been drawing on our own organizational knowledge around best practices, and we’re aiming to enhance it by incorporating current and intersectional research. To do this, we’ve been doing a deep dive into the sociocultural context of sexual violence, pulling research from many different fields. 

I often see my work as translating and curating this knowledge, pulling theoretical concepts out of articles and shaping them into accessible language and practical, applicable ideas. Many of these concepts already surface in our conversations with members, so this process enhances the knowledge we’ve already gathered from anti-violence workers. Doing this work has also highlighted the need for further research in our sector. It can take quite a bit of digging to find the right resource to back up our ideas and existing community knowledge!

AX: I have used the access to the library to support my research with anti-racism training. I also use scholarly research to ensure information I have is up-to-date or examine a viewpoint from various perspectives.

Knowledge mobilization in the workplace and beyond

SW & AX: Communicating what we do back to the members we support matters a lot to us. Some of the common ways of communicating our research findings include virtual meetings and online training courses. We also publish tip sheets, with current information that is relevant to anti-violence workers.

Qualitative and quantitative knowledge is generated formally and informally through our engagements with the members, who are workers from the anti-violence programs across BC. This knowledge gave us a sense of the trending issues and challenges faced by the members, their needs, strengths, and wisdom. There is also a wealth of free information and resources available on EVA BC’s online Resource Centre, including the updated Records Management Guidelines, the Sexual Assault Support Worker Handbook (update in progress), and resources on preventing and addressing vicarious trauma.

Thank you EVA BC!

If you are interested in the Community Scholars program, you can visit the homepage. You can also reach out directly to Heather De Forest, SFU’s Community Scholars Librarian at heather_de_forest@sfu.ca.