Depending on the nature of your community engagement, you may need to take prior action. See below for further details and contact information. For general consultations, contact Julie Plaut at the Swearer Center or Sarah Bouchard in the School of Public Health.

If you engage with a community organization as part of your course, research, outreach or other collaborative efforts, you may be required by the University to enter into a collaboration agreement.

Written agreements support collaborative relationships, trust and accountability by clarifying goals and expectations and protecting the interests of faculty and students, as well as the University and the community collaborator. Given intellectual property (IP) rights and the University’s Copyright Ownership and Use Policy and Patent and Invention Policy, agreements are especially important for collaborative research and for courses in which community collaborators may want to use student coursework or other materials resulting from the course.

Brown University has launched a Minors Protection Program that directs centralized requirements for Minors Activities, whether they are conducted in-person or virtually. The main requirements include: 

• Registering the Minors Activity in Brown’s Minors Protection Portal
• Completing the necessary background checks in accordance with the Minors Protection Policy
• Completing annual minors protection training

For more information, see https://mp.brown.edu/. 

As you develop a collaboration, also ask your community collaborator(s) for information on what, if any, clearances, certifications and/or training they require. Individuals engaging with organizations that work with minors or vulnerable populations may be required to complete a background check before they begin their engagement. 

The Swearer Center can provide logistical and financial support for background checks for students in Community-Based Learning and Research (CBLR)-designated courses during the early weeks of each semester. 

• If you would like this support for a course you're teaching, please email Julie Plaut.
• If you are interested in accessing a more complete explanation of how the Swearer Center runs a background check process that you can replicate, please email swearer-operations@brown.edu.

Rhode Island law also requires reporting known or suspected cases of child abuse and/or neglect to the Department of Children, Youth and Families within 24 hours of becoming aware of such abuse/neglect. The Swearer Center has produced an asynchronous Mandatory Reporter Training module that is accessible to anyone at Brown through Top Hat.

Additional Resources 

• Minors Protection Guidelines
• University policy on minors in research laboratories
• Workday learning module on expectations for working with minors

If your research involves human subjects or their potentially-identifiable information, you may need Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval before any research activities can begin. Research activities include accessing, viewing, or receiving any potentially identifiable information about or from living people. 

The Human Research Protection Program (HRPP) in OVPR is responsible for safeguarding and promoting the health and welfare of human research participants by ensuring that their rights, safety and well-being are protected. 

For assistance determining if a project needs IRB review:

•  Does My Project Need IRB Review? 
• Scoping review on challenges and recommendations for community-engaged researchers and partners working with IRB's

Data used as part of campus-community collaborations may be subject to institutional policies or privacy laws, such as the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which addresses student data, and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), which addresses Protected Health Information. If your work with a community collaborator will involve sharing data–either Brown sharing data with the collaborator or the collaborator sharing data with Brown–please work with the relevant University units on the necessary approvals, agreements, and protections are in place.

• Brown University’s office of Research Agreements and Contracting (RAC) manages and offers guidance on data use, sharing, transfer and other related agreements regarding data used or generated by research.
• The Library Research Data Management and Sharing Services is a key resource on research data management and sharing issues and platforms.

The Office of Community Engagement and the Swearer Center encourage the compensation of community-based collaborators as co-teachers and co-researchers. The Swearer Center, for example, offers CBLR Course Mini-Grants that instructors can request to pay to individuals or organizations at a maximum rate of $100/hour, and Engaged Research Mini-Grants that students can request to pay community collaborators. 

Paying individuals and organizations external to Brown is possible after they register as a university supplier. If you are considering providing gift cards rather than payments, see Brown's gift card policy. Gift Card purchases must be pre-approved in writing by your unit’s P-card Administrator.

The University may also recognize community collaborators' capacity in other ways (e.g., as a Professor of the Practice, if appropriate and approved by the cognizant Dean). Some engaged research initiatives hire community members into paid positions. As you develop relationships with potential community collaborators, ask whether your collaborators would value training or in-kind support, such as access to campus spaces, technology, or grant writing assistance, so Brown can consider opportunities to support such training or support. If they are interested in opportunities you cannot address but others at Brown might, please fill out this form or email engage@brown.edu.

The Assumption of Risk and Release Agreement (template from the University’s Office of the General Counsel) for students participating in voluntary field trips/off-campus experiences is appropriate for use in one-time off-campus engagement experiences. Faculty or staff should collect signed forms in digital or hard copy and retain them for four (4) years following the conclusion of the program. Waivers are generally not required for off-campus experiences that are a required component of a course – or required activities by an employee.

Institutional guidance on transportation associated with academic field trips is also relevant to required or voluntary course-related activities off campus, but students engaged in ways that entail multiple off-campus activities may also be expected to take RIPTA (accessible free with a Brown ID), walk or take shuttles when those are reasonable options. Units that want to cover participants’ shared rides between the University and a community site can request a departmental Lyft Concierge account. The University’s Insurance Office does not manage transportation arrangements but can help review particular situations and make recommendations about managing the risks associated with a program or a specific travel situation. Group travel policies and guidance can be found in Brown’s travel policy.