The Cultural Wellness Center research practices include reading or becoming informed about the historical traumas and lessons learned and the principal investigator cannot be an innocent witness or observer.

Our research approach is to work with Black people to appreciate their value irrespective of statistical juxtaposition and reference to others.
 

The Cultural Wellness Center sees the benefit to the individuals involved in the research process through self-exploration. The process of gathering data in the Cultural Wellness Center model is in itself a self-study exercise. This aspect of the research process is a challenging step for traditional academic researchers to take as there is only objective, arms-length examination in academic research methodology, and in the Cultural Wellness Center’s approach, the researcher is also studying themselves as part of the research process in addition to the research participants. Everyone participating in the research process, from the researcher to the participants, is learning and is beginning to produce knowledge. All of the knowledge produced in the process is relevant and a critical aspect of the findings. 
 

With the Cultural Wellness Center approach, the study is of the full community in which that participant exists; the participant is not lifted from the community. In contrast, traditional research takes the individual outside of the community to participate in the study and makes the individual a research subject.  A system of teaching detachment as the approach for maintaining boundaries, or objectivity in a study of life is known to damage observer and the observed. Each person in our searching examination speaks of a higher level of empathy as they each become students and teachers. Cultural relations multiply knowledge, understanding, kinship and creativity for problem solving and building a better future.

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The Cultural Wellness Center is an institute dedicated to the study of life – beginning with its purposeful introspection of its own organizational existence and evolution.
 

Part of the work of the Cultural Wellness Center is restoring the linkages between cultural communities and institutions and learning how to bring community knowledge and institutional knowledge together.  To be effective, communities and their institutional partners must identify, utilize, and nurture the essential elements where old and emerging philosophies intersect.  Cultural self-study and knowledge production can create the space for systems of thought to come together, coexist, and experience an organically grown world philosophy; one that begins to honor the ancient wisdom and modern knowledge.