Towards Capacity Building in Wheelchair Service: A Participatory Action Research Approach to Develop an International Package for Wheelchair Service Education

Research findings over several years and across the globe have demonstrated that education and training for individuals who serve on the front line of wheelchair service provision is inadequate. It is a problematic situation that challenges equitable access to an appropriate wheelchair for the 80 million wheelchair users worldwide. It is a situation that requires social change initiated by those in the field. As a methodology whose objective it is to co-create knowledge and promote social change, participatory action research (PAR) was a natural choice for the creation of the Wheelchair Educators’ Package (WEP). This paper describes our use of a 10-step PAR process combined with the Participation Choice Points model to actively recruit and engage a 32-member team of community partners affected by this situation to develop the WEP. As a team representing the interests of the ultimate beneficiaries of wheelchair service providers (i.e., wheelchair users), our members were carefully chosen to contribute to a WEP that would be of use to educators in diverse contexts across the globe but not all members were trained in research. The PAR process, designed to optimize and support participation at the desired level of our team members, as well as the measurement of team member engagement, experience, and level of satisfaction with the PAR process are described in this paper. We also offer reflections on the use of our methods and describe how this work provides insights into the way in which academic and global partners may co-create an environment that empowers community partners, many of whom volunteer their time to complete works such as the WEP.