Chapter 2: Embroidering Collaboration Across University, Community, and School Contexts: The Hmong Children’s Longitudinal Study

The purpose of this chapter is to describe the context for the Hmong Children’s Longitudinal Study (HCLS), delineate the collaborative process among university researchers and the Hmong community and charter schools in Minnesota, and share some preliminary data of the HCLS, as well as some lessons learned from working with Hmong charter schools and community members. The HCLS is a community-driven study based on the citizen health care model and funded by members of the Hmong community. It involves 188 Hmong children from third through fifth grades in three Hmong charter schools in Minnesota. The collaborative work took two years to carefully plan and launch the study. We learned that it is imperative for researchers to spend more time building relationships in the community before reaching out to start any study, be flexible and adaptable since collaborative work takes time to plan and execute, and get a buy-in and commitment early from the partnering schools and members of the community. Future directions of the Hmong Children’s Longitudinal Study are also discussed.