community development and child welfare
DESCRIPTION
Community Development and Child Welfare. An Integrated Perspective on Social Work Practice CSWE Conference Portland, Oregon, October 14, 2010. Three-phased workshop. What is community development?. - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Community Development and Child Welfare
An Integrated Perspective on Social Work Practice
CSWE ConferencePortland, Oregon, October 14, 2010
Three-phased workshopO
neCommunity Development Approaches: Elements, Principles, and Resources
TwoApplication to
child welfare practice/teaching Thre
eRole play/exercise
What is community development?• It involves people who live and
work in a place in planning and carrying out projects that make their community stronger.
• These people– Study the community’s assets
and problems– Make goals for building up the
assets and solving the problems– Choose action steps to achieve
the goals– Carry out the action steps– Evaluate and learn from their
actions
Beginning elements• ABCD as a critique of human services and outlook
emphasizing gifts and assets of individuals and community groups
• FBCD as a critique of forces that diminish productive and creative family roles and an outlook that emphasizes creative and productive family roles
• Risk-focused prevention (Communities that Care)• Improving family capacity to manage assets and generate
income seen as essential for creating safe environments for children and for furthering child development
• UN Rights of the Child as a comprehensive foundation
ABCD Map of Community Needs
Unemployment Housing Projects
Poverty
Uninsured
Illiteracy
Child Abuse
Truancy
Crime
Teen Mothers Gang Members
Mentally Ill School Dropouts
Homeless
Delinquency
Labeled People
Kretzmann & McKnight, 1993. Building Communities from the Inside Out, Chicago, IL: Acta Publications
ABCD Perspective
• Every person has gifts• Real community is built on relationships• Professionals must “step back”• Leaders involve others as active members of the community• Begin with what people care about• Find the motivations to act• Start small with those who respond to initial “call”• Hold listening conversations• A citizen centered organization is the key to community engagement• Institutions tend to crowd out citizens and informal associations• Institutions have reached their limits in problem-solving• Institutions must assume the posture of servanthood
Assumptions of Family-Based CD• Strong families essential to accomplishment of CD goals• Family viability requires some control of productive and creative
assets• Families exist in many forms• Some families require help with roles, relationships,
communication, and internal functioning• Families co-create or co-produce solutions to problems with
agencies, schools, local government, businesses, and other families
• Sustainable development principles aid in resource conservation, renewal, productive uses of habitat, self-sufficiency, and entrepreneurship
Goals of Family-Based CD
• To build thick, productive roles for mothers, fathers, and other family members
• To create diverse, productive, sustainable family institutions• To establish communication networks among families, as well
as among families and community institutions• To build host settings for families into community institutions• To engage families, other community members, and community
institutions in place-based planning• To craft public policies that support and protect productive
family roles and capacities in community developmentKordesh, 2006. Restoring Power to Parents and Places, New York, NY: iUniverse
What are productive family habitats?
• Housing, structures linked to housing, land used by families for business, agricultural, and educational purposes.
• Further family self-sufficiency• Link work and family life• Two dimensions of being productive:
– What the people do– What the plants, buildings, and technology do to
produce and conserve energy, resources
• Family enterprises are strengthened• Families are empowered to care for
themselves and their neighbors • Families work together to grow food or bring
water or other resources to the community• Families pass down their traditions and beliefs
to their children
Community development works best when …
Steps in Family-Based Community Development
• How many families• How many with children• Married, divorced, or unmarried• Ages of heads of household• How many with single and dual parents• Presence of elders• How many persons per family household• Types of employment
Identify and describe the families
• Teaching skills• Building skills• Problem solving skills• Skills in caring for others• Skills in growing food• Skills in making things• Selling skills• Bargaining skills
Identify Family Skills & Knowledge
• Ask people in their roles as mothers, fathers, grandparents, sons, daughters
• Hold learning conversations• Find out what they care about as family
members– With respect to own families– With respect to community
• Consider a circle of family leadership
Identify what families care about
• Houses• Tools• Donkeys• Land• Cooking utensils• Computers• Telephones
• Coffee ceremony table • Chairs, benches, and
tables• Other furniture• Carts• Cars or taxis
Write down the productive assets of families in their own habitats
• Training and support for micro-businesses• Obtain or improve space for production • Provide opportunities to acquire tools, carts,
or other productive assets• Advocate for good quality and stable housing• Provide opportunities for shared productive
spaces and other assets• Provide literacy and skills training to families
Identify steps to strengthen families as producers
Analyze the strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities facing families as producers in the community
Strengths
Opportunities
Weaknesses
Threats
SWOT Analysis & Productive Family Tasks
Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats
Producing Care for SickCreating businessesMaking areas near home safeTeaching traditionsMaking decisions about community
• Training and support for micro-businesses• Obtain or improve space for production • Provide opportunities to acquire tools, carts,
or other productive assets• Advocate for good quality and stable housing• Provide opportunities for shared productive
spaces and other assets• Provide literacy and skills training to families
Identify steps to strengthen families as producers
• Incubators for family enterprises• Food production associations involving urban
gardens• Family resource centers in or linked to schools• Family producer cooperatives• Family safety or protection networks
Define strategies to help families organize as producers
Family resource center
Spaces for co-production
Planning similar to ABCD
Family resource
center
Resource room
Meeting space
IGA space
Clinic
• Parents as leaders, including board members
• Families as planners and designers
• Built out of inclusive, learning conversations
• Education• Children’s health• Child development• Food• Income• Civic habits
Other “goods” families must help to co-produce
When families are too weak to be producers, there is an
empty space in the community. They can’t be replaced by associations or
networks or NGOs.
CD AS RISK-FOCUSED PREVENTION BUILDS POSITIVE INFLUENCES ON CHILD AND YOUTH DEVELOPMENT
Buffers and protective factors can be created through formal programs or informal practices
Risk factor
Risk factor
Risk factor
Vulnerable person or group
Protective factor
Protective factor
Risk Factors
• Exposure increases likelihood of harmful behaviors– Unhealthy or harmful behaviors by children– Unhealthy or harmful behaviors by adults
• Risk factors exist at different levels of person’s environment– Individual– Peers– Family– Community
Example of risk-focused framework Researcher s have found in the US that children ages 10-18 are more likely to engage in problem behaviors if they are exposed to certain risk factors at the levels of individual, school, family, and community.
In other countries, the risk factors that make children vulnerable to abuse or exploitation would differ in certain ways, and might be similar in some ways as well.
Communities that Care approach created by J David Hawkins and Richard F. Catalano, Jr., now a programs of the US Department of Health and Human Services.
The Social Development StrategyThe social development strategy is designed to organize communities around efforts to create diverse and mutually reinforcing activities – informal and formal efforts – to ultimately encourage healthy behavior by children and youth.
It can also be applied to a community when the desired results are child protection and child resilience.
The abuse or exploitation of children would be seen as emerging from risk factors at the individual, family, and community levels.
Communities that Care approach created by J David Hawkins and Richard F. Catalano, Jr., now a programs of the US Department of Health and Human Services.
Linking ABCD with risk-focused prevention
Assets and gifts as protective factors
• Positive relationships• Social skills• Household assets and tools• Economic skills• Cultural traditions that
provide positive meaning and hope
Building assets builds protective factors when …
• They strengthen positive social bonds
• They teach skills to aid in mutual support
• They enable assets to be used productively
• They further economic self-sufficiency
• They give positive meaning to everyday productive activities
Integration of content fieldsInternal family
dynamics
Sustainable housing &
habitat
Family enterprise
development
Family asset building
CD process
Community assessment
It flows from the assessment phase• Family assessments
– Roles and relationships, communication patterns, power dynamics– Assets – financial, habitat, tools, skills, knowledge
• Community assessments– Roles and relationships, communication patterns, networks,
leadership and power dynamics, risk factors– Assets – financial, habitat, tools, micro-institutions, skills,
knowledge, buffers against risk factors• Policy assessment
– Relevant systems– Funding streams
From the assessment flow …
• Goals for sustainability, roles and relationship building, asset building, network building, enterprise formation, and others
• Strategies at the family (social dynamics), asset, habitat, co-production, planning, and policy levels
• Operational steps • Evaluation and feedback
Father Mother
Brother/son Sister/daughter
dadaughter
Employer
Community garden
Practitioner
Neighbors
School
Teamm
Band
Enterprise
Local finance institution
Family Social Assessment Can Bridge to Assessment of Productive Capacities, Relationships, and Risk Factors
Resources on-line
• ABCD• Family-Based CD• Risk-Focused Prevention• Integrated Community Development-Child We
lfare Project
Contact Richard Kordesh:[email protected]
Putting It All TogetherChild Welfare Community Development
(CW-CD)By
James L. Scherrer, PhD, LCSW
Adapted from Henderson, P. (1997). Community development and children: A contemporary agenda. In C. Cannan & C. Warren (Eds.). Social action with children and families: A community development approach to child and family welfare. New York:
Routledge, pages 23-42.
Asset Based Community Development
• Formulation of goals and strategies to make a neighborhood, village or other small place a good setting for parents to raise children
• Involves people who live and work in a place in planning and implementing projects that make the community stronger
Asset-Based Community Development
• These people:– Study a community's assets and challenges– Set goals for increasing the assets and
managing the challenges– Choose action steps to achieve the goals– Implement the action steps– Evaluate and adjust based on the evaluation
Family-Based Community Development
• A “family” is:– A group of people who are socially and
economically interdependent• AND
– Which exercises social control over its members• AND
– Is involved in raising children
Family-Based Community Development
• Engages families who live in the community– To increase their productive capacity– To become co-builders of their communities– To develop co-producer relationships with
• Schools• Local Government• Businesses• Non-Profit Organizations• NGOs
Child Welfare Community Development
• Communities are comprised of people who share a similar– Identity– Problem– Interest
• These people may, or may not, live in close proximity to each other
Child Welfare Community Development
• Families in the community have assets that can be developed and used to address threats to the– Safety– Health– Well-being
• of children that exist in their– Environment– Neighborhood– Living spaces
Child Welfare Community Development
• Integrates “working with children” with– Economic programs– Regeneration programs
• Supports and strengthens communities– Brings people together – Develops a sense of community identity– Articulates resources and needs– Creates interconnected relationships
Child Welfare Community Development
• Creates accessibility– Small scale is essential– Safe and developmentally appropriate lines of
communication between children and adults– Children are involved in community activities
and projects– Children participate in decision-making– Clear, jargon-free language used
Child Welfare Community Development
• Integrates the social and economic– Community-based crime and drug prevention
programs– Resources for children's play areas
• Children and adults actively involved in their– Design– Location– Management
Child Welfare Community Development
• Integrates the social and economic, cont.– Neighborhood centers which provide a mix of
• Advice• Information• Meeting point• Safety
– Places children at the center of social inclusion strategies that contain a significant community development strategy
– Combines income related work for children and their families with the positive involvement of children in their communities
Child Welfare Community Development
• Builds alliances– Organizations that focus on families should develop
relationships with each other – Children's rights supports cross-organizational work
in community development and the needs of children
– Widens perspective on child protection to include prevention
– Develops services that enhance children's general quality of life
Child Welfare Community Development
• Community Groups and Children– Assume that communities and children will
participate in resource building– Adults can be found who are prepared to struggle
for a better future for their children• Children need good quality play areas• Children need safety• Children need places to gather• Children need an appropriate and effective
education• Children need a sense of well-being
Child Welfare Community Development
• Sample Assignments• First third of course:• Complete Asset Based Community
Assessment Form (see handout)• Second third of course:• Complete Family Assessment in
Community identified in first Third (see handout)
Training Assignment
•Describe how these environmental circumstances impact children and families•Develop a role play illustrating• The challenges experienced by children in these circumstances• A positive community and family based response
•Homeless Children 9 & 10•Domestic Violence 3 & 11•Single-Parent Home 2 & 6•Child Headed Family 12, 8 & 7•Child Prostitution 13 & 16•Poverty 4 & 14•Child Abuse 6 & 8
My Contact Information
• Dr. James L. Scherrer• [email protected]• Dominican University• 7200 West Division Street• River Forest, Illinois 60305• 1-708-714-9104 office• 1-708-297-5726 cell