Community Mentorship Program

In a collaborative effort between SC CTSI Workforce Development and Community Engagement, the team developed and implemented this program in 2014 (Academic Medicine, 2016) to address a common barriers related to effectively translating clinical research findings to community settings.  The program aligns early-stage career scientists in training with mentors from the community and who share similar areas of research interest. The overall goal is to create a meaningful experiential opportunity for those in training to develop competency in translating interventions to the community to increase the likelihood that they will make an impact on human health.  A community mentor helps the trainee successfully navigate community based opportunities that inform all stages of their research from developing a relevant research question to implementing an existing intervention. We are currently in the phase of developing best practices for implementing and evaluating the impact of this program through an eight CTSA Collaborative to be able to share widely.  If you are interested in learning more please contact Workforce Development at wd@sc-ctsi.org.