Important values in community development:
- Process and integrity.
- Value local knowledge.
- Be culturally respectful.
- Utilise local assets and resources.
- Community strengths.
- Bottom up, empowering approaches.
Ife (2016); the primacy of process: we get socially just outcomes if we:
- Value the local.
- Engage in processes that have integrity.
- Are open and inclusive.
- Seek consensus.
Concepts which underpin community work (9):
- Advocacy
- Empowerment
- Access + Equity
- Participation
- Human Rights
- Social Justice
- Participatory Democracy
- Inclusiveness
- Sustainability
Six aspects of a social justice perspective:
- Structural disadvantage
- Empowerment
- Rights
- Needs
- Peace and non-violence
- Participatory democracy
Empowerment in community development (6):
- It is a collaborative approach (instead of a top down).
- Community control over knowledge and information.
- Informed choice.
- Community driven decision making.
- Building on strengths rather than focusing on ‘problems’.
- Active participation.
Questions to assess power (5):
- What are the sources of power for those in conflict?
- Is there a significant power imbalance?
- Is power being misused or abused?
- How can the less powerful become more empowered?
- What intervention is most appropriate?
Traditional sources of power (6):
- Control
- Money and wealth
- Position
- Knowledge and information; might and force
- Abuse
- Inspiring fear
Intersectionality and power (7):
- Gender
- Age
- Class
- Ethnicity
- Race
- Ability
- Through institutions (family, community, religion, education, media, etc).
What is an ideology?
- A set of beliefs or vision about how the world should be in terms of causes and social problems and solutions” (Rayment, 2007).
Rights and social justice:
An understanding of human rights provides a helpful framework, often viewed in terms of legislation, bills, the UN. These are obviously all important but are ‘top down’ approaches and worker would need to consider these from an empowerment perspective.
Human rights and community development (2):
- A human rights approach to community development places the issue within a broader social justice agenda.
- A human rights framework and approach ensures that community is engaged in a process that is empowering and that sustainable change is affected.
Four principles of ecology:
- Holism
- Sustainability
- Diversity
- Equilibrium
Ecological perspective and community development:
Environmental activists have seen community as an important component of a sustainable future. Ecological responses place humanity’s relation to nature at the centre of understanding of human social life. (Kenny p108)
Limitations of the ecological perspective (3):
- Does not address issues such as equity, human rights, structural oppression or disadvantage and empowerment
- Could potentially produce an ecologically sound society that may be authoritarian, divisive etc
- Approach seeks solutions within the existing social, economic and political order (needs to be integrated with a social justice approach).
Social justice and ecological perspectives:
- Ideally a combination of a social justice approach combined with an ecological approach is important for Community Development. One without the other is insufficient.
The imposition of values:
- Community development requires certain value positions (e.g. participatory democracy; non-violent change). Community work is a process of advocating and imposing certain values.
- A worker needs to be able to differentiate process values from personal ones.
Conflicts of interest in community work:
- e.g. community values conflicting with the workers values.
- e.g. community values conflicting with employer/funding bodies.
- e.g. issues of information and communication.
7 models of community development practice:
- Community organising
- Community building
- Community capacity building
- Community action
- Community education
- Community engagement
- Community cultural development
- Community organising (2)
- The coordination of cooperative efforts and campaigning carried out by local residents to promote the interests of their community.
- Community organising builds power by connecting people with shared interests to take action. This approach recognises that significant social change tends to come about through the coordinated action of a number of people, rather than isolated individuals.
- Community building
Community building is a field of practice directed toward the creation or enhancement of community among individuals within regional areas or with a common interest. It is sometimes encompassed under the field of community development.
- Community capacity building:
…promoting the ‘capacity’ of local communities to develop, implement and sustain their own solutions to problems in a way that helps them shape and exercise control over their physical, social, economic and cultural environments.
- Community action
…any activity that increases the understanding, engagement and empowerment of communities in the design and delivery of local services. Community action includes a broad range of activities and is sometimes described as ‘social action’ or ‘community engagement’.
- Community education
…programs to promote learning and social development work with individuals and groups in their communities using a range of formal and informal methods.
- Community engagement
…primarily deals with the practice of moving communities toward change, usually from a stalled or similarly suspended position.
