All Voices Welcome at the World Cafe
The goal of our Growing Resilience pilot project is to partner with rural communities in New York State to identify and reduce the impact of childhood trauma to help prevent and reduce substance use and substance use disorder (SUD).
We are using a Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) framework that places communities at the center of the research process, prioritizing their needs and concerns and actively involving community members in developing lasting solutions tailored to the community.
Fundamental to this CBPR approach is establishing a truly collaborative partnership between academic researchers and the community that draws from the knowledge and strengths of each partner, relies on shared learning and decision-making, and includes commitment to capacity building. This power-sharing arrangement can be a departure from more traditional academic-community partnerships in which researchers take the lead in setting the agenda. With CBPR, community members and researchers craft the program together.
“Trust-building is as important as data collection in our Growing Resilience research,“ said Allison Stiles, PhD, co-principal investigator on the project team specializing in family engagement and integrated behavioral health. “We looked for ways to engage with community members and build relationships based on mutual trust and respect.”
An important step was inviting everyone for a snack at the World Café.
What is the World Café?
The evidence-based World Café method1 is a meeting-facilitation approach that uses community conversations in small groups to encourage active and candid engagement by all participants, even when convening many people from different organizations with varied experience, viewpoints, and levels of authority. This approach helps avoid the power dynamics inherent to more traditional “focus groups” in which a few voices may dominate while others go unheard.
The World Café’s informal atmosphere, small discussion groups, and emphasis on listening can be helpful in rural communities to make sure everyone feels comfortable speaking up and knows their contribution is valued. The World Café also aligns with guidelines for trauma-informed qualitative research. Using a trauma-informed approach is particularly effective when addressing challenging issues—such as childhood trauma and SUD prevention in youth—by creating an atmosphere of trust and empathy.2
“The World Café creates a safe space for our rural community partners to have what can be difficult conversations,” said Stiles, who emphasized that the focus is on having conversations that matter to the community.
Welcome to our World Café
We invite an array of community partners—schools, youth and families, social service agencies, health care providers, SUD treatment organizations, community leaders, and others working with young people—to join us in a warm and welcoming café setting complete with tablecloths, beverages, and snacks. Participants receive a small stipend to recognize the value of their time and input.
After a welcome describing our objectives and emphasizing the importance of participant input, café members are invited to warm up with an introductory question about community strengths and “what you love” about the community to get the conversation started.
Next participants are offered a café menu, which consists of powerful, open-ended questions about teen substance use that invite conversational exploration and discussion and set the tone for respectful, reflective conversation. Each table dives into one conversation topic at a time for deeper discussion, shared insight, and reflections. After a set time, participants rotate to other tables to consider topics with different people for broader idea-sharing. Notetakers capture input at each table to ensure no contribution is lost.
The café concludes by bringing everyone back together for a “gallery walk” to reflect, share common themes, and brainstorm next steps.
An investment in partnership
“The World Café levels the playing field between researchers trying to gather information and rural community members sharing their valuable experiences,” said Melissa Heatly, PhD, co-principal investigator on the project team specializing in school-based mental health initiatives. “Our community partners drive the conversations, define the community landscape, and identify gaps in knowledge and systems of care. Their perceptions may differ from our assumptions going in, and we need to learn about that and assimilate it in our work.”
Heatly acknowledged that it can be uncomfortable for researchers to share control and take the time to implement this collaborative process given grant requirements and academic pressures. “But it is so valuable and important,” she said.
That investment can yield greater rewards in terms of learning, research, and impact. Ideally participants will leave the World Café having learned more about community resources, having made local connections for future collaboration, and feeling better equipped to make progress in addressing trauma and preventing SUD.
Trauma-informed research in rural communities
Mitigation of childhood trauma can decrease later substance use and SUD in teens and adults,3 yet there is limited research on trauma-informed SUD prevention programs specifically for youth in rural communities. Our Growing Resilience project aims to fill this gap.
We also hope to inspire future research in rural communities on this challenge and others by demonstrating the value of CBPR. We spotlight the World Café as an effective way to foster meaningful, robust collaboration with rural partners and adapt trauma-informed, SUD-prevention approaches for rural communities.
“Rural communities are experts on their own needs, resources, and challenges, which will make the work much more meaningful and sustainable,” said Stiles, stressing, “It is essential to tap into that collective knowledge and empower our community partners to take action.”
Interested in learning more?
For more information about this project or how to participate in a World Café, please reach out to the project manager, Chris Cretelle, MBA, PMP: Christina_Cretelle@urmc.rochester.edu
Interested in other UR Medicine Recovery Center of Excellence projects? Contact our Program Assistance at URMedicine_Recovery@urmc.rochester.edu or 1-844-263-8762 (1-844-COE-URMC).
Our Team
Melissa Heatly, PhD: Principal Investigator (PI) Specializing in School Based Mental Health Initiatives
Allison Stiles, PhD: PI Specializing in Family Engagement and Integrated Primary Care
Kenya Malcolm, PhD, IECMH-E®: PI Specializing in Early Childhood and Family-Focused Care
Linda Alpert-Gillis, PhD: Senior Advisor Specializing in Innovation in Child Mental Health Service Delivery
Chris Cretelle, MBA, PMP: Project Manager
Laura Perrone, PhD: Clinical Psychology Postdoctoral Fellow, Child and Adolescent Track
References
[1] World Café Community Foundation. (n.d.) World Café method. Retrieved June 23, 2025.
[2] Löhr, K., Weinhardt, M., Sieber, S. (2020). The “World Café” as a participatory method for collecting qualitative data. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 19; Recchia, V., Dodaro, A., De Marco, E., & Zizza, A. (2022). A critical look to community wisdom: Applying the World Café method to health promotion and prevention. International Journal of Health Planning and Management, 37, 220-242; Alessi, E. J., & Kahn, S. (2023). Toward a trauma-informed qualitative research approach: Guidelines for ensuring the safety and promoting the resilience of research participants. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 20(1), 121-154; Isobel, S. (2021). Trauma‐informed qualitative research: Some methodological and practical considerations. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 30, 1456-1469; Bumble, J. L., Carter, E. W., McMillan, E. D., & Manikas, A. S. (2017). Using community conversations to expand employment opportunities of people with disabilities in rural and urban communities. Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, 47(1), 65-78.
[3] Felitti, V. J., Anda, R. F., Nordenberg, D., Williamson, D. F., Spitz, A. M., Edwards, V., Koss, M. P., & Marks, J. S. (1998). Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults: The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) study. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 14, 245-258.
