Partners or community partners are the terms that Wendy uses to describe the people she works with in the community
Transcript
Well terminology does matter [laughs], terminology matters a lot. But that’s sort of an interesting question because it makes me reflect on when the question – when I ended up talking to a community group about their roles we started that by asking, I asked them how would they like me to refer to them, like because when I make an agenda you know I put my name and I’m the researcher at the University of Ottawa, what do they want their titles to be with their name as part of the partnership team; and that’s where I was told “We don’t want any titles because it could change. I could be part of the management team here but now I’m a patient over here because I’ve also had cancer and I’m looking after my mother.” So they didn’t want any titles they really wanted to be their name and their community, so you know on a broader level for this research partnership science what to call – I really don’t know. I only refer to people I work with as partners or community partners, yeah partners is the word that I use.
It is interesting because I did actually ask my team “What do you want to be referred to you as?” And they didn’t want any titles, but community partner I think is a pretty – I think I’d be really careful with anything that has connotations of power imbalances, community experts.
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