The Pedagogies of Community-Engagement Collective (PeCEC) was a community-based research project created to explore, generate, and share knowledge about facilitation practices that support community-engaged work across different sectors. Our project was inspired by a deep desire to explore and share knowledge about facilitation practices that support community-engaged work as a way to advance social justice.

This project, funded by Research Practice Partnership Grant from the Spencer Foundation,  brought together skilled community facilitators and organizations working in community arts, HIV and harm reduction, adult education, youth engagement and activism, anti-racist social movements, Indigenous Sovereignty, community organizing, community-based or engaged research, and more.

Organizational partners on this project included the Centre for Community Based Research, Righting Relations, Neighbourhood Arts Network, Women and HIV/AIDS Initiative, Community Engaged Research Initiative at Simon Fraser University, and Sketch Working Arts/Flip Foundation. The grant was held at the University of Toronto, and was Co-Directed by Rubén Gaztambide-Fernández, from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, and Sarah Switzer, from the Centre for Community Based Research. 

Over 3.5 years (Sept 2022 – Dec 2025), The Centre for Community Based Research worked collaboratively with other PECEC team members to meet the following project goals, including:

1. To deepen our partnership as community-based organizations and CE practitioners working across sectors, including: health, education, cultural, and postsecondary institutions, as well as larger social movements.
2. Through virtual interviews, focus groups, and in-person retreats, we exchanged experiences and knowledges about the pedagogical approaches to facilitation that grounded our practice with specific communities.
3. To co-develop a series of written and audio-visual resources (e.g., cellphilms, podcasts, web-resources)  to support other CE practitioners

We produced multiple resources during this project, including select resources co-authored by CCBR staff below.

All resources are available online:

https://www.communityfacilitation.ca/resources

CCBR Involvement in Resource Development

As a wider partnership, all project team members and organizations played a role in resource development and knowledge sharing. In addition to general resources created by the PECEC collective, CCBR team members were involved in the following events, and co-authored resources:

Nyaga, S., Switzer, S., Chau, A., Howley, E., Mohamed, M., Ostapovitch, S., Vela-Alarcón, A., Harris, S., Ng, W., Gaztambide-Fernandez, R., & Pedagogies of Community Engagement Collective. (2025). Facilitator's guide to community engagement: A deep dive into community-engaged facilitation. Pedagogies of Community-Engaged Practice Collective. Available at: https://www.communityfacilitation.ca/resources/community-guide

Ostapovitch, S. & Sadati, S.M.H. (2025-11-30) Saving or Engaging? Rethinking Community Facilitation, a conversation with Ananya Banerjee and Annie Chau with Pedagogies of Community Engagement Collective (No 1.) [Audio podcast episode]. In The whyPAR Podcast. https://www.communityfacilitation.ca/resources/facilitator-archetypes

The facilitation validation imagination machine (kamilah apong, Angie Aranda, Casey Burkholder, Erin Howley, Erica McNabb, Sarah Switzer, Andrea Vela-Alarcón with the Pedagogies of Community Engagement Collective): https://www.communityfacilitation.ca/resources/facilitation-imagination-machine

Rooted in Practice: Learning from Community-Engaged Facilitators (Community Launch and Community of Practice Forum): Dec 4, 2026

Pedagogies of Community Engagement Collective website development

For more on the project, the team, and our work together, visit : https://www.communityfacilitation.ca/the-project