Community Engagement Alliance (CEAL) Annual Meeting 2025

On March 12th our North Carolina CEAL Team along with our 21 CEAL team sites gathered in Birmingham, Alabama to share promising practices and innovate strategies that are taking place in Community Engaged Research across the country

Conference Highlights

Trip Attendees

This trip consisted of Anissa Vines and Angelique Jennings of The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Al Richmond and Paul Kuttner of Community Campus Partnerships for Health, Angela Caraway and Tish Womack of The Caraway Foundation, and Krystina Chavis of The North Carolina Community Action Association.

Conference Discussions

We were in the presence of several organization leaders, principal investigators, researchers, programming staff, and community partners from across the United States. We learned about how different CEAL teams managed communication strategies, engagement of partners in the work, research construction, and protection and engagement of community health workers in the research.

The City of Birmingham

Through this trip, we were privileged to better understand the history of the city of Birmingham. We attended a social event at the Civil Rights Institute, seated directly adjacent to the historic sites of the 16th St Baptist Church and the Kelly Ingram Park. During this event we were able to hear first hand accounts of someone’s experience of joining the protest and experiencing the aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement in that community and what impact it had and continues to have

Conclusion

Our team is grateful we could attend our annual conference in a city filled with so much history and charm. We are excited to see our colleagues next year not just as attendees, but as the next host city for the meeting. We hope to make North Carolina proud and showcase all the wonder and glory of this state, so stay tuned as we begin to plan for this event!