Growing, Collecting, and Sharing the Best Since 2009
COMMUNITY-BASED
ACTION RESEARCH
About FLV Research Initiatives
Feeding Laramie Valley conducts education and needs assessment through diverse community partnerships and collaborations. We advocate for entrepreneurial local food projects and offer project support through community-based participatory action research.
Currently our three major areas of research are focused on Gardens for Health Healing, which provides gardens in Albany, County for people managing chronic health conditions; Food Dignity, a 5-year initiative to trace these paths taken by five US communities and to collaborate in mapping and traveling the most appropriate and effective roads forward for creating sustainable community food systems that build food security; and Growing Resilience, led by Dr. Christine M. Porter, assistant professor and Wyoming Excellence Chair in Community and Public Health in the Division of Kinesiology and Health at UW is a collaboration among UW, Northern Arapaho Tribal Health, Eastern Shoshone Tribal Health, Action Resources International and Blue Mountain Associates.
2018 Hoop House Research
Collaborative Pathway Model
A collaborative pathway model (CPM) is a visual type of program logic model that illustrates, in detail, the theory of change underlying a program. Each model below was developed using the values-driven CPM process which is designed to surface, protect, and convey the expertise held by community organizers and practitioners. Arrows connect each program activity to the short-term outcome(s) it contributes to. Additional arrows link each outcome to the other outcome(s) that it contributes to, tracing the pathways of change and convergence, and the incremental outcomes along the way.
The diagrams are complex – but so are these community programs! There are various ways to “read” one: try starting at the right, with a long term outcome, and working backwards to see all that goes into achieving that outcome. Or start on the left with an activity of interest, and trace the path of change that that activity contributes to. Or look for “regions” in a model, to get a sense of the broad strategies of change that guide the complex work in these community-led initiatives.
Examples of Our Work
Formal Education in food justice and sustainable food systems
"Rigorous storytelling" or "Case Study Research"
Extensive action and dissemination by individual partners and collectively
in the Food Dignity project
Mapping and traveling the most appropriate and effective roads forward for creating sustainable community food systems that build food security.