On January 16th, the Engage Toronto Community Engagement Committee (CEC) had its fourth meeting. Two new CEC members were welcomed at this meeting: Aidan Ablona of the OurSpace, InvestigaytorsTO, and ResistStigma initiatives, and Praney Anand, the former Coordinator of Engage/Momentum II in Vancouver and now the Men’s Outreach Coordinator at the Alliance for South Asian AIDS Prevention (ASAAP). In addition, general feedback was solicited for the qualitative arm of the Engage study. CEC members were provided with seed recruitment vouchers and other recruitment materials to begin helping us recruit potential seed participants for the study.
The Vancouver CEC had its first meeting of the year on January 30th. We welcomed the new Coordinator for Engage/Momentum II, Gbolahan (GB) Olarewaju, and discussed the protocol for recruitment of initial participants to the second phase of Momentum along with potential knowledge translation events in the community.
The Montreal CEC met on February 13th, to discuss the roll-out of Engage in Montreal and to help find ways to optimize recruitment and promotions. Many ideas to better equip participants with the information they need to be successful recruiters were brought to the table, and we brainstormed ways to promote the study more generally. It became exceedingly clear that the success of Engage’s recruitment strategy will depend on the level of implication and ownership we can inspire in each and every one of our participants. We are looking forward to this new and ongoing challenge, which represents an opportunity to further Engage’s focus on knowledge translation and community involvement.
Gbolahan Olarewaju
May 15th, 2017