Online and Remote Community-Engaged Facilitation: Pedagogical and Ethical Considerations and Commitments

Abstract

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, many community-engaged practitioners struggled with how to meaningfully and ethically build, maintain or sustain relationships, partnerships, or community-engaged projects, amidst mass upheaval, loss, and uncertainty. Prior to the pandemic, workshops, meetings or community events happened in community drop-ins, social service organizations, or in neighbourhood meeting places. Due to social distancing restrictions, these physical environments abruptly changed to online meeting and messaging applications, phone, and even postal mail. This drastically impacted how community-engaged practitioners approached their facilitation work with communities. This rapid shift also amplified many ethical complexities, like privacy and confidentiality, equitable access, and safety, for those facilitating workshops or programs in non-profit, community-based and participatory research contexts. This article explores findings from a participatory study on how community-engaged practitioners (i.e., community artists, community facilitators, participatory researchers, and participatory visual methods practitioners) across Canada adapted their facilitation approaches to online or remote platforms in the context of COVID-19. We briefly describe our process of doing participatory research online during a pandemic and share findings on how community-engaged practitioners articulated the ethical commitments they brought to their facilitation practice as well as pedagogical and ethical considerations identified for online or remote (i.e., phone, mail) community-engaged facilitation. We conclude by offering reflections on what might be gleaned about online and remote community-engaged facilitation for the present moment. We hope that this article - and the illustrations enclosed - will serve as a guide for emerging and established community-engaged practitioners to reflect on their 'how and why' of facilitation when working with and alongside communities for social change.