Community Capacity as an “Inside Job”: Evolution of Perceived Ownership Within a University-Aboriginal Community Partnership.

Purpose. To assess the evolution of perceived ownership of a university-Aboriginal community partnership across three project stages. Design. Survey administration to project partners during project formalization (1996—Ti), mobilization (1999—T2), and maintenance (2004—T3). Setting. Aboriginal community of Kahnawake, outside Montrea4 Qaebec, Canada. Participants. Partners involved in influencing decision making in the Kahnawake Schools Diabetes Prevention Project (KSTDPP). Measure and Analysis. A measure of perceived primaiy ownership subjected to linear trend analysis. Results. KSDPP staff were perceived as primary owner at TI and shared ownership with Community Advisory Board (CAB) members at T2 and T3. Trend tests indicated greater perceived ownership between TI and T3 for CAB (X21 = 12.3, p <.0001) and declining KSDPP staff (X21 = 10.5, p <.001) ownership over time. Academic partners were never perceived as primary owners. Conclusion. This project was community driven from the beginning It was not dependent on an external academic change agent to activate the community and develop the community's capacity to plan and implement a solution. It still took several years for the grassroots CAB to take responsibility from KSDPP staff thus indicating the need for sustained funding to build grassroots community capacity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]