CIAC engagement projects span diverse communities: from early childhood administrators improving their skills across Missouri, to residents seeking more equitable access to broadband services, to youth hoping to improve offerings at the St. Louis Zoo. Across every CIAC project, questions around deep engagement, community context, and participatory practices are front and center — enabling partners and communities to co-create the knowledge, connections, and tools needed to meet their goals and pursue long-term, systemic change.
CIAC follows the lead of each community in how they define themselves. Communities are often place-based (like the 24:1 footprint in North St. Louis County), experience-based (like those seeking youth mental health services), issue-based (like those who care about maternal health in the Bootheel), population or identity based (like older adults who recently immigrated to the region) or practice-based (like data people gathered through Data for Social Impact). As communities define themselves, overlap, and change over time, CIAC knows that deep engagement is essential to better understand what the community is experiencing and push for lasting, equitable change.
Interested in working with CIAC on a Community Engagement project? Contact our leadership team at ciac@umsl.edu for more information.
