About SOURCE

Mission

SOURCE's mission is to engage the Johns Hopkins University health professional schools and Baltimore communities in mutually beneficial partnerships that promote health and social justice.

Our Values

Reciprocity

To exchange with others for mutual benefit

Justice

To promote fair and equitable treatment for all

Service

To be of service to others

Collaboration

To work with others intentionally

Guiding Principles

Throughout the strategic planning process for the Johns Hopkins University’s Roadmap 2020 Task Force, University and community partners highly recommended the development and implementation of guiding principles for community engagement. Informed by consultations with community-engaged colleagues and community leaders, as well as best practices for community engagement, these principles are intended to guide our collective work in equitably and authentically engaging in community-campus partnerships. These principles can be broadly applied to all community-campus partnerships affiliated with Johns Hopkins University. 

Shared Vision and Values

Goals:  Initiate partnerships with the intention of drawing together University and community in unity of purpose. 

Must co-develop shared vision, purpose, mission, values and goals. 

Partnerships should actively co-design projects that dismantle oppressive systems, confront disinvestment, and work toward justice. 

Practices: A written vision, mission, goals, values; action plan is co-developed.  

Mutuality and Respect

Goals: The structures, policies, and participants of a partnership will reflect the importance and value of all contributors for their unique expertise and experience.  

Participants will commit to building trust, exploring history, working for reconciliation and equity, and practicing humility. 

Co-design partnership practices and policies that acknowledge and leverage power and privilege for the shared vision. 

Practices: Community representatives are leaders in the partnership, and they are rewarded for their roles. 

Design an asset-based approach to addressing the project mission—relying on community expertise and experience alongside University resources.  

Transparency and Communication

Goals: Co-develop transparency and communication partnership guidelines. Guidelines should be updated as needed. Include plan for how to share partnership outcomes.  

Participants will disclose relevant and accurate information with each another and communicate clearly, authentically, and regularly using a variety of different methods to optimize engagement.  

Practices:  Guidelines are written and available to everyone in the partnership.  

Accountability measures include tracking/reporting/ monitoring.

Shared Decision Making

Goals: Partners will co-develop process for making decisions together. Create guidelines/structures for shared power. Projects should establish leadership structures with community partners. 

Participants will gather the best available information to inform their decisions, incorporate the values and preferences of members in an inclusive manner, and share power, responsibility, and accountability.  

Practices:  Projects are co-led with the University and community.  

Shared policies are written to address conflict resolution. 

Commitment

Goals:  Hold each other accountable to deliver as promised on the partnership’s shared vision and expectations.  

Remain faithful to partnership and vision in the face of opposition or challenges. 

Build, when relevant, a sustainability plan to maintain and grow partnership outcomes.  

Practices: Timelines are co-developed. 

Responsibilities for each partner are outlined alongside measures for evaluation. 

Our Social Justice Commitments

While supporting these principles, SOURCE strives to incorporate our three core Social Justice Commitments into our work. These core commitments were developed with key terms by the SOURCE Social Justice Taskforce comprised of participating students, faculty, staff, and community partners.

SOURCE commits to ensuring that education has a central role in emancipation.
  • Intention: It is important to define and align individual intentions toward the shared vision and values, and clearly lay out all partners’ expectations for the outcomes of the partnership as well as its impact. 
  • Embodiment: It is essential to embrace repeated self-reflection, to move service away from performance and toward meaningful change and justice. 
  • Compassion: It is essential to recognize and value the humanity of all involved caring directly and indirectly for both the collective group and individual participants. 
  • Leadership: It is important for all partners to understand their leadership roles and responsibilities, and continuously question whether their roles reflect and actively work toward the ideals of social justice and anti-oppression.
  • Iterative Process: It is critical for all participants to continue striving toward justice rather than only meeting a firm goal; and therefore, partners will practice compassion, remain reflective, and be open to collaborative revision. 
SOURCE commits to promoting that all learning is contextual.
  • History: It is essential to understand historic systems of oppression and power, how they impact JHU and Baltimore community partners, and the larger context they bring to these relationships. 
  • Recognition:  It is important to acknowledge, welcome, and honor the diverse identities and histories of all partners and community members so that differing perspectives are valued and recognized positionalities can inform all aspects of the collaborative work. 
  • Collective Work: It is important to recognize that solutions do not lie with any single entity, and a culture of collaboration is needed to both strengthen individual assets and uncover potential biases in partnership practices. 
SOURCE commits to aiding in the dismantling of existing systems of power and privilege.
  • Power: It is essential to acknowledge the current systems of power at play between partners, and across society at large, to clearly identify the role that these structures play in creating and maintaining unjust systems. 
  • Ever-changing: It is important to acknowledge that systems of power and marginalization continue to shift, and that such changes will transform how partners value outcomes and how communication strategies will adapt to strengthen collaborative work. 
  • Action: It is important to accept that anti-oppression work is continuous, requires ongoing motivation, and acts to aid in dismantling injustice. 

History

Creation of SOURCE

SOURCE was founded by the three schools on the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions campus—Bloomberg School of Public Health, Nursing and Medicine —in January 2005 to create one centralized, interdisciplinary community engagement and service-learning center. The center was formed in order to coordinate the community engagement activities of the three schools while reducing unnecessary duplication of effort and services.

SOURCE serves as a recognizable clearinghouse for requests from community agencies for involvement activities and as a focal point for students, faculty and staff seeking exposure in an urban environment. SOURCE is also available to expand resources for faculty interested in service-learning and community-based interdisciplinary research, education and practice.

Hopkins Overview

The Johns Hopkins University is extremely large, and the organizational make up can be quite confusing to individuals both outside of and within the university. JHU includes ten academic and research divisions, and numerous centers, institutes, and affiliated entities. There are several facilities and campuses located in Maryland. In Baltimore, there are a few major campuses – Bayview, East Baltimore Medical Campus, Harbor East, and Homewood. 

East Baltimore Medical Campus

Located side by side on the East Baltimore Medical Campus, where SOURCE is located, you will find the Bloomberg School of Public Health, the School of Nursing, and the School of Medicine. SOURCE serves all three of these separate divisions. The Johns Hopkins Hospital & Health System are separate legal entities from the University, and therefore, are not a part of the tri-school community engagement and service-learning center.

Growth and Impact

SOURCE has come a long way in our nearly 20-year history. One of our key goals is to provide our JHU students, faculty and staff with exposure and opportunities for hands-on experiences in the community. We prefer to respond to community-identified needs, so we rely on receiving requests from our partnering CBOs. Additionally, SOURCE has worked to integrate community involvement into the academic curriculum within the Schools of Public Health, Nursing, and Medicine. This effort has expanded the opportunities for our partnering CBOs to find committed, sustainable assistance from our student body.