Over time, the structure and dynamics of rural communities have changed. Services have moved from local to regional, young residents are moving away, long-term residents are decreasing, and new residents are coming into the community. In the past, rural communities knew how to use the Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) approach naturally. But with changing times, how can they focus their assets to build community?
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I love new approaches and ways to improve how I do my community work. Here are three approaches that work well to better your community work.
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I am taking part in my first book club and we are reading John McKnight and Peter Block’s book, The Abundant Community, Awakening the Power of Families and Neighbourhoods. A few chapters in and I have gone from confusion to amazement in my thinking process.
When we are born, we start our lives as citizens of our family and community, and slowly become consumers of products, services and systems that lead us to believe we are better off and safer. When we think like a system we tend to identify the problem by labeling a specific target - for example, the ‘youth problem’ - however, John and Peter point out that it is not the youth with the problem but the neighbourhood and community.
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Over the last couple of years I have had the opportunity to work with a number of communities. This work has involved a great deal of listening; giving ear to people’s stories, dreams and laments. As I reflect on these experiences, I have come to see two impulses at work, the nostalgic and the utopic. The nostalgic focuses on “the good old days,” memories doled out like cups of sugar and lined with white-picket fences. Recollections of a time where things were simply “better.”
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Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) is about looking at the gifts and assets that exist within a neighbourhood and allowing people to respond to and create local opportunities. How do you use local assets and gifts to guide a city to increase the social fabric and deepen community? Howard Lawrence, who lives in a neighbourhood in Edmonton, had the answer to this question - Abundant Community. Howard saw the power of neighbouring and wanted the city to experience the richness of neighbours sharing their gifts, knowledge, skills and abilities to improve their neighbourhood.
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The statement that resonated with me throughout the ABCD: Healthy Neighbourhood, Healthy Cities conference in Edmonton (May 28-30), was made by Cormac Russell, “nothing for us, without us.” As an employment coordinator working with individuals with disabilities, we pride ourselves on our focus on “person-centered planning” and “individual service plan goals”. We constantly think how we can improve our practices so that we can better serve those in our program, and help them reach their goals.
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