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This commentary discusses strategies and models for engaging diverse community partnerships through the Youth of Color Needs Assessment, a community-based participatory research project that elevates the voices and experiences of homeless and unstably housed youth of color in King County, Washington. Building upon the lens and expertise of a young Community Advocate thrust into research, it explores the strengths of youth of color leadership and best practices for trauma-informed, relational support for youth leaders and focus group participants alike. These insights offer a youth-centered model for the field grounded in engagement, sustainability, and ethics for research within and for communities at the margins., Author(s): Sydney Pk [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (Aff1) The Northwest Network of Bisexual, Trans, Lesbian, and Gay Survivors of Abuse, , P. O. Box 18436, 98118, Seattle, WA, USA Introduction Violence [...]

Grassroots community efforts intuitively understand the physics of relationships-that you cannot interact with something or someone, even if that interaction is simply observation, without having an impact. Research shapes the way our lives are imagined. There's no way around it. But developing relationships with researchers or others who can help document and disseminate 'by and for' information can be challenging for grassroots and community led initiatives. When institutions seek to include marginalized community priorities into pre-existing frameworks or study initiatives, or when researchers come from the outside, extract information from our community organizations and grassroots efforts, and then leave to analyze and make meaning of it elsewhere, the result is never accurate and our own community led trajectories of learning are disrupted and undermined. From significant changes to how research collaborations are conceived and funded, to simple fixes to approaches used in the field, researchers can be better partners to community led efforts to document and understand our own lives., Author(s): Connie Burk [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (Aff1) The NW Network of Bisexual, Trans, Lesbian & Gay Survivors of Abuse, , P.O. Box 18436, 98118, Seattle, WA, USA Grassroots community efforts [...]