Community empowerment
Some thoughts on Neoliberalism and Asset Based Community Development
This was prompted by a tweet from Cormac Russell (10/3/22) with a link to his response to MacLeod and Emejulu’s critique of ABCD.
It was not a surprise that MacLeod & Emejulu called their critique of ABCD ‘Neoliberalism with a community face?’[1] It comes as no surprise that Asset Based Community Development is easily co-opted as an asset based approach.
It also is no surprise the Cormac[2] readily acknowledges that it:
“…has not done enough to lift up the voices of women and especially women of colour. In more plain terms, it is over populated with the voices of white, middleclass men.”
Our critique of ABCD centres on the omission of equality, power relations or social justice and that it sets itself in opposition to what it calls ‘deficit based community development’. This is something that we at changes flagged up when we first came across it.
We were astonished that this new ABCD approach prioritised people’s assets without acknowledging the impact of very difficult external conditions facing some groups of people. We really felt for the many community development activists, workers, and managers who were working with people in difficult situations and whose approaches, passion and commitment were being diminished.
It was clear that this approach was ripe to be co-opted as part of the move to put responsibility for communities and its infrastructure onto people who live in those communities; it was ripe for adoption by systems and structures who didn’t want to focus on systemic inequality and oppression, or change how they do things. There was little that was radically new within it; the methodologies of ABCD have been around for a long time in community development and radical community education.
If inequality and social justice are not explicitly at the heart of community development, it will lead to the same old power relations establishing themselves within groups and community action. It is no surprise that white middle class man take up leadership roles and dominate community space when they are allowed to. Power relationships and social justice should run through community development theory and practice like Blackpool through a stick of rock. Class, race, disability, sexism, homophobia and so on have to be part of the conversations and the strategy.
In terms of the Scottish context, we were involved in another ABCD approach to community development; Achieving Better Community Development which was developed through the Scottish Community Development Centre in the late 90s. This was a useful framework. However, after a couple of years of working with this around the UK, we felt it was important to critically analyse and refine it. We developed it alongside our peers in the community development world. What emerged was DICE with something called the Community Empowerment Dimensions at the heart of it. See https://www.changesfoundations.net/ for more on this approach to community development. (You may have to log in – quick and painless.)
Community Development does not exist in isolation from infrastructure and is not just about ‘communities’, however we define them. It is about the relationships between communities and those who work the levers of power around money, decisions and resources. It has to be about community influence, otherwise it is a case of communities being left to get on with it themselves with no change to infrastructure and external conditions; the neoliberal approach of pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps.
A five year piece of work in Dudley led to two frameworks around community influence – Voice and Echo. Voice is about community influence and Echo is about how institutions and structures could respond to that influence. These have been used across the UK, in the States and Australia. Hopefully there is little chance of them being co-opted by neoliberal ideology, as they require institutions and officers to challenge existing ways of doing things. There is scope to improve them though.
[1] Neoliberalism with a community face?: A critical analysis of asset-based community development in Scotland (MacLeod, MA & Emejulu, A) 2014
[2] C Russell 2016 https://www.nurturedevelopment.org/blog/neoliberalism-community-face-critical-analysis-asset-based-community-development-scotland/
An example of ‘Working in Empowering Ways’
Community Empowerment, as described by changes, can be understood by breaking it down into five distinct but inter-related dimensions. They illustrate that an empowered community is:
• confident
• inclusive
• organised
• cooperative
• influential
Each linked dimension can be interpreted as:
• process (working in ways which are empowering) and
• outcomes (empowered individuals, groups, organisations & communities)
The 5 dimensions make ‘community empowerment’ very practical and identifiable; they describe how the values of community development* can be put into action. SAND is a Shropshire-based initiative looking at the issues impacting on older Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Trans people accessing health & social care services – it has an action group and is taking a community development approach which offers a fantastic example of the changes Community Empowerment Dimensions in action.
SAND stands for Safe Ageing No Discrimination. Below are the 5 Community Empowerment Dimensions, illustrated with stories about SAND practice.
Outcome: Confident communities – This is about putting the community development value around LEARNING into practice: recognising the skills, knowledge and expertise that people contribute and develop by taking action to tackle social, economic, political and environmental problems
• members of the SAND action group have already changed their beliefs that it is worth trying to change things
• several members who have never campaigned as ‘out’ gay people now do
• SAND members are recognising and utilising their own skills and expertise
-
Outcome: Inclusive communities – This is about putting the community development value around
EQUALITY into practice: challenging the attitudes of individuals and the practices of institutions which discriminate and marginalise people
• SAND is all about challenging health and social care discriminatory practices
• SAND is being invited to give presentations to providers and professionals e.g. solicitors for the elderly network, local advice and information advocacy forum
• SAND has created a safe space for people to talk about their own experiences
-
Outcome: Organised communities – This is about putting the community development value around PARTICIPATION into practice: facilitating democratic involvement by people in the issues which affect their lives, based on full citizenship, autonomy and shared power, skills, knowledge and experience
• SAND is an open and transparent group and aims to build slowly, developing a structure that works for SAND, rather than imposing a ready-made structure
• SAND values the experiences of all members of the group and is building a sense of real community and solidarity
• An action plan was developed via facilitated discussions
Outcome: Co-operative communities – This is about putting the community development value around
-
CO-OPERATION into practice: working together to identify and implement action based on mutual respect of diverse cultures and contributions
• SAND is building links with other local and national LGBT networks and initiatives
• SAND is linking with other involved in relevant national research
-
Outcome: Influential communities – This is about putting the community development value around SOCIAL JUSTICE into practice: enabling people to claim their human rights, meet their needs and have greater control over the decision making process which affect their lives
• SAND is currently undertaking participative research funded via HealthWatch to influence health and social care provision locally
• SAND intends to influence the debate around LGBT health and social care
• SAND has high profile named supporters including Sandi Toksvig, Peter Tatchell and Tom Robinson
-
SAND is in a unique position to gather information and evidence about what is happening to older LGBT people. The only way we can do this is by taking a community development approach, rather than seeing people as individual consumers of care. SAND is working through LGBT networks and contacts to connect with people and communities who are often hidden and marginalised (for very good reason). The aim is to facilitate safe spaces for people to define the issues that impact on them and develop collective solutions that are meaningful. SAND also wants to build social capital and develop supportive local community based solutions, as well as holding services to account.
Something to illustate how important this approach is – in the whole of Shropshire out of at least 4000 LGBT older people over the age of 65 – SAND knows of only ONE person in a care home setting……who hasn’t come out to her carers! Where are the rest? Their needs are clearly not being met. For more information go to http://lgbtsand.wordpress.com
*changes acknowledges that people express the values of community development in different ways. This interpretation is drawn from the Strategic Framework for Community Development, CDX 2000. Others may be found in the National Occupational Standards for Community Development Work.
New online resource – ‘pick up and think’ – call it distance learning!
Over the past couple of years we have been working on a new, interactive resource. The idea was to try to bring together the many hours of thinking and grappling we have done to make something coherent of our work in, with and related to communities. There have been so many valuable conversations with colleagues and we have had the luxury of digging deep to ensure that the understandings which underpin all of our work make sense and add value – huge value. Having done all that it didn’t feel right to keep it to ourselves. Initially the idea was to develop a learning resource – as a pre-runner to our training courses. In the event this has turned into something a bit different, a lighter touch maybe. It is certainly an introduction to thinking about community and should be useful to anyone engaging with communities, in whatever capacity. have a look – tell us what you think. We encourage people to answer the questions where they arise – you can then refer back to your answers as you work your way through. It also means that we can collect information from a range of people to feed into future research and writings – a return on investment! http://www.changesfoundations.net/
Chapters include: Community development, community empowerment, Exploring influence, What is Community, Power, Equalities, social justice & human rights
How it feels to be disempowered
I have just been revisiting some notes from one of our echo sessions where we start by exploring the concept of ’empowerment’ so people get a grip on why it is important to work in empowering ways and what this means in practice, it gives everyone the chance to discuss their differing views of the term and come up with ways to explain it.
One way to do this is to turn it around and ask people to think about when they have felt disempowered – what did they feel like? The results can be quite powerful and, on this occasion the group said:
Unloved, excluded, helpless, over-looked, disenfranchised, outsider, low self-worth, silenced, worthless.
They took all of these words, added a few others and turned it into a powerful piece of poetry which they then fed back to the main group to express how it feels to be disempowered:
Have you ever felt helpless, with a low self-worth,a complete outsider, overlooked and excluded?
Organisational silence – they just won’t understand
I’m left feeling under-valued, worthless and unloved
Underneath all this, I am disenfranchised
I need to be heard
What a message to people working with communities, or employing people – or just communicating with people! Of course, we would counter this by suggesting the Community Empowerment Dimensions as a framework to turn this around.
Employee engagement
I come back to this every now and again and today is one of those days. There was an article in the Guardian a year or so ago, reporting on the Global Workforce Survey and evidencing the lack of engagement amongst employees – on a massive scale.
Barely one-fifth (21%) of the 90,000 employees surveyed (in 18 countries) were truly engaged in their work, in the sense that they would ”go the extra mile” for their employer. Nearly four out of 10 (38%) were mostly or entirely disengaged, while the rest were in the tepid middle….
The survey covered many of the key factors that determine workplace engagement, including the ability to participate in decision making, the encouragement given for innovative thinking, the availability of skill-enhancing job assignments, and the interest shown by senior executives in employee well-being.
It struck me at the time that the Community Empowerment Dimensions we talk so much about have something very simple and effective to offer. They help us (and employers) to understand how we can work in more empowering ways which:
- build people’s confidence
- include rather than exclude
- are open, democratic and accountable
- build positive relationships, identify common messages, develop and maintain links and promote partnership working
- encourage and equip people to take part and influence
Wouldn’t it be fantastic to try this out, hear and share a few stories? It just seems madness not to!
This people empowerment, improved approaches to working has always been with me and – as an aside – I was given a precious text many years ago by a fellow consultant: The Spirited Business: success stories of soul friendly companies. It is worth a look if you can find a copy!
More or less empowering ways to engage with communities?
Once upon a time, during facilitated sessions with the Dudley Community Engagement Working Group, we revisited the Ladder of Participation (we have been working with the Wilcox version for the last few years and this is the one we referred to in this session. Having said that, we have been harkening back to the original Sherry Arnstein version in recent times and it’d be interesting to do that more thoroughly and find out what that’s all about!)
Back to our workshop. We had been looking at community empowerment because the group was interested in developing empowering approaches to engagement in Dudley – and doing this in such a way that it was embedded for the future. We had been working with the 5 community empowerment dimensions and the discussions about engagement led us to think about the different ways in which engagement takes place. This is where the Ladder comes in.
We talked about how it was possible to engage in more (or less) empowering ways on all points of the ladder. Even when giving information it is possible to do it in a way which is more empowering than others. I am sure we have all experienced information with is not empowering (perhaps a teacher at school who was scary – or bored; or turgid books to read) – and information which is more empowering (perhaps local newsletters, magazines, a spirited speaker at an event where we felt included).
This way of thinking led us to bring together the 5 community empowerment dimensions and the Ladder of Participation into a matrix
Adding the 5 community empowerment dimensions into the mix, it is possible to illustrate how, at each of the 5 levels, there are different ways to approach this engagement – some of which are more empowering than others. This matrix was later taken up by Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council to use in their community engagement toolkit and only last week it rang huge bells when we whipped it out of our back pockets in a meeting!
Getting the whole story
This is a short story from one of our training sessions a while ago – it really ilustrates how ‘frameworks’ can help people!
Chris was a Social Exclusion Officer working for a local authority. He was based in the Policy Department and felt passionately that community empowerment was a key aspect of his work, although he couldn’t be specific about what that meant or how it manifested.
On top of this difficulty with defining the ‘what and where’ of community empowerment, Chris had also been struggling for quite some time to see how his role fitted – and complemented – the Community Education Department who saw themselves as the main protagonist of community empowerment.
Chris came along to one of our training courses on community empowerment and, as always, we introduced people to the 5 Community Empowerment Dimensions and showed how they can help him to understand what community empowerment is. For Chris, this was a major break-through – and very heartening for us to see someone get so much clarity from them. In Chris’s case, he could see that the Community Education Department were concerned with just one of the five dimensions – the one about increasing skills, knowledge and confidence (which we call the ‘confident’ dimension), but they had no focus on – or remit to work on – the other 4 dimensions.
Chris could see that the other four dimensions: equality, organised collective working, cooperation and influence were all key parts of his role.
This meant that Chris was able to start up discussions with colleagues in Community Education about how they could work together to ensure they took an empowering approach to their work. It worked out really well and offered a platform for those officers to have those discussions – they could also see how their own departments fed into the authorities work in complementary ways.
Rooms for Hire – a community development story
A manager of a community centre commissions trainers to provide a range of classes and activities for older people using the centre. The manager wants to make sure that the centre offers a community development approach to what they do. To achieve this, the manager draws up a ‘statement of expectation’ which she discusses with the trainers and which becomes a criteria for commissioning. The manager uses the 5 community empowerment dimensions to frame this statement and arranges to have regular review sessions with trainers.
It is about putting the values of Community Development into action
Statement of expectation:
It is expected that trainers working on these premises will adopt a community development approach to their work. By this, we mean that you will work in ways which…
Learning | Recognise the existing skill levels of individuals, ensures that everyone knows what is expected of them.Recognise the increase in skills needed to undertake the activity and share your knowledge and experience with others.Make people feel good about themselves and encourage people to believe that they can ‘do it’. | This is about the ‘confident’ dimension … working in a way which increases people’s skills, knowledge and confidence and instils in the a belief that they can make a difference |
---|---|---|
Equality | Make you aware of who is contributing in sessions, who is not and why.Make you aware that running the class/session in particular ways excludes some people from taking part and you take steps to address this.Recognises, appreciates and builds on the differences and similarities of those taking part. Challenges discriminatory language and behaviour | This is about the ‘inclusive’ dimension …. working in a way which recognises that discrimination exists, promotes equality of opportunity and good relations between groups and challenges inequality and exclusion |
Participation | Encourages people to come together in groups, to share their own experiences, knowledge and skillsIdentifies common interests in the group and arrange activities around theseEncourages people to undertake group projects requiring a range of skills which recognise the strengths within the group | This is about the ‘organised’ dimension … working in a way which brings people together around common issues and concerns in organisations and groups that are open, democratic and accountable |
Cooperation | Illustrate how the activities you are working with link to others so that groups join and work together on wider, connected projectsThe group you are working with understand how their activity links into the wider world, for example an exercise class could link to food & nutrition, yoga or dance | This is about the ‘cooperative’ dimension … working in a way which builds positive relationships across groups, identifies common messages, develops and maintains links to national bodies and promotes partnership working |
Social Justice | Provide opportunities and encouragement to the group to make suggestions in the development of the class/session, to suggest ideas and structures for future classes, resources and facilities. | This is about the ‘influential’ dimension … working in a way which encourages and equips communities to take part and influence decisions, services and activities |
Gobstopper day – a community development story
Going back a while now, but this is one of those memories that just stays with you: I was due to deliver some training to AgeUK staff, on the publication I had written about putting community development into practice.
It was in Huddersfield and I had made the journey up from Shropshire the night before and got to the venue bright and early. I waited a while, but only one participant turned up – let’s call him Mick! It transpired that a lorry full of gob-stoppers had overturned on the M62 so the only person who travelled by public transport ended up in a one-to-one session with me! I didn’t even know they still made gob-stoppers, but they were a blessing in some ways as the two of us had the luxury of spending the whole day together – real quality time.We put the next few hours to good use – sharing experiences and stories and trying to find some practical solutions.
Mick worked as a ‘leisure and fitness coordinator’. One day, he was visited by 4 women (aged 70+) who told him that they wanted a Tai Chi exercise class to go to. They had talked to other people in their age group and it was a popular idea.
Mick wanted to make sure that anything he arranged was ‘community-led’ so he talked to these women – and others – about the best day of the week, time and location, to hold the classes and he arranged for a trained instructor to deliver them.
The first week was great – about 50 people turned up and seemed to engage happily with the activity.
The following week wasn’t as popular, but was still good, and attracted about 30 older people to the session.
Week 3 was very disappointing and barely made it to double figures, with a downward spiral from there-on-in.
Mick was dispirited and just could not work out what had gone wrong, as he had met the request that came from the older people themselves and consulted them on the practicalities. I asked him if – when the women had first approached him – he had asked them why they wanted Tai Chi classes ……
- Was it primarily about exercise and fitness?
- Was it about relaxation?
- Was it about socialising?
- Was it about learning something new?
- Was it to fill a gap in the timetable?
- Was it because someone had recommended Tai Chi as something to try?
- Or because there had been a television programme about it?
- Or because the neighbouring area had Tai Chi classes?
- Or something else …?
Mick didn’t know, but we could both see that it mattered. We could see a really clear link between process and outcome.
In Mick’s example – his process of checking with older people was great but he didn’t have a clear outcome i.e. he didn’t know why he was doing it, other than people had asked him to. Crucially, we didn’t know WHY this group of people wanted Tai Chi classes, what they hoped to get from them, and so he had never considered, or checked, if that was likely to happen. Huge learning for us both.
Mick and I back-tracked a bit to think about what might happen if we tackled both process and outcome. It made sense to start by thinking about the outcome – what older people want to happen as a result of the activity. We practised with the outcome that “older people network socially and learn more from each other”.
Once we had this in the bag, we discussed ways that this might be achieved. e.g. doing things which will bring people together, encouraging them to talk to each other, creating an atmosphere where people will share ideas and develop trust in each other. To achieve these things, we thought we needed to stimulate discussion and debate, get people interested in others – thinking about their similarities and differences.
- It can be pretty strenuous for older people – so, if they are after gentle exercise, it may not necessarily the best activity.
- It can be delivered ina way which is quite individualised, so if people want a social activity to share with others, it may not necessarily the best activity.
- Tai Chi instructors are very disciplined, so if they deliver in this way and people want an informal, relaxed atmosphere, it may not necessarily be the best activity.
Sticking with the Tai Chi example: if Tai Chi is seen to be strenuous, individualised and disciplined – how could it be delivered in a way which achieves outcomes about networking socially and learning from each other? Sessions could include:
- information about why people practice Tai Chi, the health benefits and the range of movements included
- discussion about Tai Chi, exploring people’s knowledge and experience of China and other martial arts, what makes movements easier to do and what might make them more difficult for some people
- work in small groups, to support each other to understand and practice the movements, encourage people to share their experiences of Tai Chi – and the benefits they have recognised
- visits to other places practicing different types of martial arts, and to a variety of other venues to learn about different ways of exercising
- encouragement to, and opportunity for, older people to shape the direction of the sessions, voicing their interests and requirements and making suggestions for future sessions and other activities
We identified these five different, but inter-linked, ideas by working through the five community empowerment dimensions – which were really helpful
It was a fine day!
Having avoided the gobstoppers, sadly Mick later suffered on the way home as Leeds Train Station was hit by a tornado – it was quite day!
The key – a community development story
A community development practitioner started a new job and was asked to work with a small isolated rural community which for many years had been viewed as a ‘difficult’ area by local professionals. She was told that people from that area/small council estate were ‘useless’ and didn’t have the energy or the motivation to get anything done on their own behalf – ‘they could not be trusted to bring crisps for a xmas party’
At her first meeting with the small group of locals who bothered to turn up to the very run down church hall, the door was locked and everyone just stood there waiting for the door to open. The new worker stood there and chatted along with the rest of them – and thought that maybe she could offer to go and find the key. However, she decided not to do that and thought that she would wait and see what happened next. After about half an hour someone said maybe we should go and get the key…and someone went off to get it and they all went in and had their meeting.
At the end of the meeting, someone suggested that they decided in advance who needed to get the key next time there was a meeting. From this small beginning grew a £0.5m new community centre and childcare project with the people in that community taking responsibility for their initiative.
They had been viewed as passive and dependant by local professionals and consequently had been ‘done to’ not ‘worked with’. All the power had been kept in the hands of the professionals.
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