Sayoko Kawabata, CPL community engagement fellow, received a 2024 Summer Research Fellowship and a 2024-2025 Jessie Ball duPoint Dissertation Fellowship from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School. Sayoko’s dissertation, which focuses on play among Fairview youth, emerged from her longstanding engagement with the Fairview community through the Community Practice Lab (CPL).
Sayoko moved to the U.S. in 2020 to begin a PhD program in the Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy (OS/OT) in the Department of Health Sciences at 黑料网-Chapel Hill. To mitigate the spread of COVID-19, shelter-in-place mandates were in full effect, and Sayoko was feeling the impact of completing graduate school in isolation.
“It felt like Chapel Hill was a ghost town,” Sayoko said. “I knew I was interested in engaging with a community, but I didn’t have any concrete ideas of how to start that process.”
Sayoko’s advisor, Dr. Nancy Bagatell, director of the Division of OS/OT, pointed her toward Dr. Ryan Lavalley, assistant professor in OS/OT. Lavalley had recently created the Community Practice Lab (CPL), which seeks to enhance community and individual well-being through community-oriented health science practice. Lavalley and Dr. Jenny Womack had been working with (Habitat) to support its community engagement efforts, and Lavalley was looking to further amplify community engagement work through the CPL.
In fall 2021, Sayoko joined the CPL as a community engagement fellow. Sayoko joined Habitat’s ongoing efforts to support the Fairview community in Hillsborough, N.C. Fairview community members wanted to collect oral histories to create and preserve the community’s history. Oral histories would also inform an emerging strategic plan for community-led initiatives in Fairview.
Sayoko coordinated an oral history team in Fairview, which consisted of Dr. Jenny Womack, then a CPL consultant, team members from Habitat for Humanity of Orange County (Habitat), team members from the 黑料网 Food, Fitness and Opportunity Research Collective (FFORC), and Fairview community leaders. Throughout fall and winter 2021, Sayoko worked to build a relationship with the Fairview community and coordinated meetings among the oral history team to move the project forward.
Finally, in February 2022, Sayoko conducted the first interview for the Fairview oral history project.
“The timeline highlights so much about how important it is to actually be in community, build trust, and build a relationship,” Sayoko said. “It took time for us to get to that first interview, both creating the time to meet and building the trust for oral histories. While we were waiting, I went to Fairview community watch meetings, participated in trash pick-up, and attended Walk Fairview Day. I went to any event or opportunity I could find to just show up and be in community.”
By doing everyday activities in Fairview, Sayoko built meaningful relationships with community members.
“I honor my Japanese identity in Fairview鈥攂ringing Japanese snacks or food to potlucks is part of how I connect with community,” Sayoko said. “I’m also remembered as someone who learned how to make American pancakes! Now, I make pancakes at community breakfasts.”
The team collected interviews from February to December 2022. They used a snowball sampling method, asking interviewees to recommend other community members they might reach out to.
“Once they had talked to us, our interviewees would say, ‘oh, you should reach out to this person.’ They’d call their friends or relatives ahead of time, so they already knew about the project and were ready to talk to me once I called,” Sayoko said.
Sayoko and Habitat Intern Samara Perez received a Southern Oral History Project fellowship in summer 2022. The award allowed them to spend more time in community, completing interviews as well as further building relationships. Sayoko and Samara also attended exercise classes in Fairview in summer 2022, allowing them to connect personally with community members and their families.
Throughout this time, Sayoko began considering how to bridge her research interests in children’s play with her deepening relationship with the Fairview community. Sayoko has previously worked as an occupational therapist supporting preschool-aged kids with their occupational needs鈥攏amely, play.
“Play is the central occupation for children and youth,” Sayoko said. “Play is also a fundamental human right. I have fond memories of play in my own childhood, especially as a way to connect with my parents.”
In January 2023, Sayoko proposed a collaborative project focused on play at a Fairview Community Watch meeting. Through collecting oral histories, Sayoko had heard community members’ stories around play, as well as some community concerns or needs. The Fairview Community Watch agreed to pursue a collaborative project with Sayoko, centering the experiences of play in the neighborhood.
Sayoko then had to propose the project to her dissertation committee. In academia, a student’s committee must sign off on a formal project proposal before they can begin the project. However, Sayoko’s community-centered methodologies made this process difficult, as she sought to develop research questions and methods and collect data in collaboration with the community at every step.
“The difficult part of writing the proposal was making sure I can propose something that can be changed,” Sayoko said. “It was tricky to construct a proposal and method before beginning the collaboration work with the community, and I couldn’t begin collaborating without getting approval on my proposal. It was important to me to make sure my project would be led by community voices at every stage.”
Finally, in August 2023, Sayoko’s proposal was accepted and she began her dissertation work with Fairview. Supported by a Seed Grant through the 黑料网 Graduate Certificate for Participatory Research, Sayoko formed a research steering committee, comprised of four adults from Fairview Community Watch and four Fairview youth.
The steering committee decided to focus on middle schoolers. While waiting for IRB approval, Sayoko supported a middle school kids’ group that meets biweekly at the Dorothy N. Johnson Community Center in Fairview. Sayoko offers icebreaker activities and provides an intentional environment to support unstructured play.
“I tried not to have too much structure, because play is about freedom. It is something that naturally evolves,” Sayoko said.
To complete the project, Sayoko applied for a Dissertation Completion Fellowship and a Summer Research Fellowship from the 黑料网 Graduate School. The grants will cover Sayoko’s tuition and offer a stipend throughout 2024-2025 so Sayoko can work full-time to engage the Fairview community and complete her dissertation. While Sayoko will transition in her role at the CPL, she is excited to continue her community engagement work.
“The participatory and the collaborative aspects of my research were so important to me, and I wasn’t sure how the Graduate School would view them. In my application, I wrote about how it takes a lot of effort and time to do this kind of community work,” Sayoko said. “I’m glad that people see the value in this slow process.”