'It doesn't happen any other way': relationship-building and reflexivity for equity-focused intersectoral practice (EquIP)

Abstract

Intersectoral processes that bring together public institutions, civil society organizations and affected community members are essential to tackling complex health equity challenges. While conventional wisdom points to the importance of human relationships in fostering collaboration, there is a lack of practical guidance on how to do intersectoral work in ways that support authentic relationship-building and mitigate power differentials among people with diverse experiences and roles. This article presents the results of RentSafe EquIP, a community-based participatory research initiative conducted in Owen Sound, Canada, in the midst of a housing crisis. The research explored the potential utility of equity-focused intersectoral practice (EquIP), a novel approach that invests in human relationships and knowledge co-creation among professionals and affected members of the community. The three-phase EquIP methodology centred the grounded expertise of community members with lived/living experience of housing inadequacy to catalyze reflexive thinking by people in professional roles about the institutional gaps and barriers that prevent effective intersectoral response to housing-related inequities. The research demonstrated that EquIP can support agency professionals and community members to (i) engage in (re)problematization to redefine the problem statement to better include upstream drivers of inequity, (ii) support reflexivity among those in professional roles to identify institutional practices, policies and norms that perpetuate stigma and impede effective intersectoral response and (iii) spark individual and collective agency and commitment towards a more equity-focused intersectoral system. We conclude that the EquIP methodology is a promising approach for communities seeking to address persistent health equity and social justice challenges.

Keywords: health equity; intersectoral action; lived experience; participatory action research; relational praxis.