How to Understand Communities, Approaches, and Skills to Work with Communities - Term Paper Example

Report on Community Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Code: Date of Submission: Introduction Many present societies have engaged in community work so that they can improve their living standards by meeting their needs. The main aim of community work is to meet the needs of the society at the least cost possible. Community work comprises of all works that ensure people are networked and have a good relationship and that this relationship can help them meet their needs. This work involves community based support services like taking care of the elderly (Twelvetrees 2001). Examples of community work include joining together to advocate for change in the government policy, setting up a counseling service in the community and educating the community on the need of being of educating children by parents. The rising needs in the society led to the need of establishing community work to meet the needs of the less privileged so that they can also improve their living standards. Community work brings people together to share ideas which will transform the community into a better place to live by improving services like health (Taylor 2008). In this regard therefore, this paper will discuss how to understand communities, approaches to working with communities and skills in working with communities. Understanding communities A community is a group of people who share common values, have the same geographical location and who have same relationship or interact in the same pattern. Before any organization engages in the community work, it is important to understand the values and beliefs of that community (Muirhead 2002). This will help to eliminate conflicts of interest between community work and the community. The main elements of the community include locality, local society and the social interactions. Locality is the geographical location of the community, local society represents the interactions of the community that helps them to meet their social needs and social interactions is the relationship between the people of the community to meet their needs. A community can be formed as a result of common interest. A community can be formed by a group of people who frequently interact and share a common interest (Mawson 2008). This common interest can be of political agenda, spiritual or cultural aspect. Through sharing common interest, there will be a community of common interest who develop values best valued by the group only. A community can also be as a result of the social system. This is a community which adopts the systems theory. They share the same social systems like education and health although they have boundaries. The social system ensures that people share common interests and common systems thus they have the same values forming a community (Taylor 2008). A bottom approach to a community is where the community is categorized into two. At the bottom there are many members whose undergo their daily lives without making any contribution to decision making while at the top are the few individuals who make the decisions for the community. Each community has different values and ways of doing their own things. Before starting any community work, there are principles which need to be observed and they include understanding the values and interests of the community one wants to work with and establishing good relationship with the members who are affected by the community work. These principles help to effectively attract the attention of the community people (Taylor 2008). The best way to get to learn the values and interests of a community is to be immersed into the community itself so that one becomes part of the community and can be able to learn a lot. This will provide full information about how the community operates and how it looks like. Approaches to working with communities There are various approaches to working with communities. It is important to understand the best approach to apply so that the objectives of community work can be achieved. These approaches include contribution approach, instrumental approach, community empowerment approach and the developmental approach. Contributions approach This approach encourages the community to contribute to community work. They contribute in terms of their time, expertise knowledge, financial support and perhaps the facilities to be used in community work (Ife & Tesoriero 2002). Despite the community contributing to community work, in terms of decision making with this approach it is top-down approach. This is where the decisions are made by the top professionals who then influence the community to participate in implementing those decisions. This approach is important because it helps to foster some sense of ownership because the community individuals are contributing to the community. It also ensures that the resources of the community are evenly distributed and used (Ife & Tesoriero 2002). However, the problem with this approach is that the government may use it to augment the limited resources. The government can use the volunteers to replace the paid workers thus lack of jobs. Instrumental approach With the instrumental approach, the achievement of a particular target is more important. It aims at achieving some goal in the society for example the health issues like taking care of the diabetic people in the community (Weeks et al 2003). Instrument in this approach is used to refer to a project or a target. This approach is basically designed by professionals who plan for the project strategically and set objectives to be achieved. They then take the responsibility of ensuring that the community accepts the objectives. This approach is the most common in Australia and is mostly used in providing health programs. This approach is criticized that it sweeps a way the social justice of the community (Ife & Tesoriero 2002). The professionals rush to achieving the targets rather than developing processes that may expand the main objectives of the program. This approach is implemented with references to managerialism and economic rationalism. This approach aims at meeting the identified need in the society. Community empowerment This approach sees the community involvement in the community work as the effect of getting information, poor economic conditions and access to resources (Black & Hughes 2001). During the process of determining priorities for the community, they gain knowledge and skills. These skills and knowledge are then implemented by the community to bring change because they have been empowered by knowledge and information. The actions regarded in the empowerment approach include personal development, social action and raising consciousness. These actions are important in the empowerment approach as they greatly influence the well being of the community people. Developmental approach This approach to community development encourages the participation of the community people at every stage of the process. It encourages the development of the community to work together with the aim of improving the wellbeing of the community people (Black & Hughes 2001). Developmental approach encourages the community people to work best on their behalf and on behalf of other people to improve their wellbeing. The developmental approach involves the community people in all the processes. This encourages them to participate in the projects which will benefit the whole community. Through this relationship, the community gains skills and knowledge on how to solve new problems that may arise in the society (Black & Hughes 2001). The developmental approach gives power to people at the bottom so it’s a bottom-up approach. The differences between the developmental and empowerment approach is that, developmental approach involves people in decision making and process participation. Skills in working with communities The skills which can be used to work with communities include the following; Community decision making. This is the most difficult task in community work. The decision should be collaborative, effective and inclusive (Taylor et al 2008). The key principles to be observed in making community decision include knowing which decisions to make, avoiding such talks as top down, engage the community in structuring the task, give effective resources and giving community room to contribute. It is important to consider the above principles because they attract the attention of the community thus will avoid resistance. The main challenges faced by the community workers is that there are professional who think that the community people are not informed which is not a reality (Kulisa 2006). The community people might be well informed about situations affecting them than the professionals. Another challenge is when the professionals make invalid assumptions about the community. In making community decisions, the community advisory groups may be used and management board. Another skill is to establish partnerships. This provides a stronger relationship with the community members (O'Connor 2008). The decision for partnership may be based on the task nature and available resources. The partnership ensures that the community is greatly involved in the projects thus the work will be accepted. Partnership principles include understanding the need for partnership, build trust and recognize the mutual benefits. Different types of partnership include partnerships within the community, partnership within sector, and a cross-sector and partnership with external communities. Partnership can be formed through the following stages. The first phase is formation, working phase and the moving. At the formation stage, it is where the partnership is formed and the following skills are considered for effective formation of partnership; making clarification and negotiating how to exchange the resources, ability to identify the gains that both partners will gain from their partnership than the losses and finally recruitment of right partners. The second phase is the working phase. This is the phase where the partnership has already been formed and it’s now functioning. Effective working partnership should include elements like good communication, environmental partnership and ability for motivation. Communication is important because it helps to build trust and better sharing of resources. Motivation on the other hand helps the partners to work towards achieving the goals and objectives set. The final stage is the moving on. This is the stage where the objectives have been achieved. It aims at building relationship even after the achievement of the objectives. Community leadership; this is the skills where the community leadership is involved in the management of the programs or the project (Taylor et al 2008). The local leaders should be recognized as they have some impact on the community work. They understand the community better thus can provide guideline on how to manage the project. This helps to avoid resistance by the community members. The challenge of community leadership is that few people are willing to put in their contribution to the programs. The community leadership skills include generating common purpose; develop community filed and balancing tasks. Therefore community leadership is important because it helps to mobilize the resources and community members to work towards improving the wellbeing of the people of the community. In addition, there is the skill of community planning. This involves addressing the complex issues of the community in a systematic manner (O'Connor 2008). It involves collecting information and resources. Addressing the needs of the community appropriately will lead to acceptance of the community work because the community will feel that their wellbeing is being taken care of. Techniques used in community planning include rapid appraisal where the community is appraised based on a particular variable, surveys where the community is surveyed and their needs are assessed, using focus groups which consist of expert to collect information about the community and make recommendations and finally use of public meetings and this is where the community members are given the opportunity to give their contributions or views. These techniques help to collect data relevant for planning and prioritizing the needs of the community well. Lastly, there is knowledge building. Before engage in the community work, the community workers have to build knowledge and understand the community they are working with (O'Connor 2008). This will help to develop necessary skills and to avoid conflict of interest between the community leadership and the community workers. However, when building knowledge there are some challenges which are encountered and they include lack of adequate literature on the social science of the community (Kulisa 2006). There are no many places to collect knowledge from except from the community people. This may not give correct information. Conclusion A community is a group of people who are related and share common features like beliefs and geographical location. Community work aims at improving the wellbeing of the community. Communities are based on the common interest and can be in a form of social group. The approaches to community work include contribution approach, instrumental approach, community empowerment and developmental approach. The skills in working with communities include community decision making, establishing partnership, community leadership and planning and building knowledge. References Black, A & Hughes, P. (2001). The identification and analysis of indicators of Community strength and outcomes Canberra: Commonwealth of Australia: Department of Family and Community Services. Kulisa, J. (2006). Developing Practice or Management Struggle: Barriers to effective Youth Work Practice with Young Women Living with Violence. Unpublished doctor a dissertation, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Western Australia Ife, J & Tesoriero, F. (2002). Community development: community based alternatives in an Age of globalization. French Forest, N.S.W.: Pearson Education Mawson, A. (2008). The Social Entrepreneur: Making Communities Work. London: Atlantic Books. Muirhead, T. (2002). Weaving Tapestries: a handbook for building communities. Mt. Hawthorn: Local Government Community Services Association (WA). O'Connor, I., Wilson, J., Setterlund, D. & Hughes, M. (2008). Social Work and Human Service Practice. French’s Forrest: Pearson Education Australia. Taylor, J. Wilkinson, D & Cheers, B. (2008). Working with communities in Health and Human Services. Sydney: Oxford University Press. Taylor, W, C. (2008). Working with communities in health and human services. South Melbourne: Oxford University Press. Twelvetrees, A. (2001). What is community work? In Community Work (3rd edition Basingstoke: Palgrave, in association with Community Development Foundation. Weeks, W. Hoatson, L & Dixon, J. (2003). Community Practices in Australia. Frenchs Forrest: Pearson Education. Read More