Working Through Bound Liberation: A Community Engagement Framework for Health Partnerships

Background: A community–academic partnership was developed to implement a community-based participatory research project within Chicago’s Englewood community.

Objectives: We explain how Mental Health Impact Assessment (MHIA) ensures that mental health and health inequities are considered in decision making by using a systematic process that engages populations most likely to be impacted by those decisions.

Methods: We report on the process of developing an MHIA by engaging community partners to evaluate and predict potential mental health outcomes of an employment policy.

Lessons Learned: We describe the principle of working through bound liberation, resulting in a bidirectional engagement between academics and community partners. We highlight lessons and challenges of our engagement process.

Conclusions: Effectively joining in solidarity with community partners was critical for project success, but community capacity needs to be increased to support future projects.