Lead Partner: Community Strengths Approaches
Description
The Community Strengths Approach has been used in a variety of settings including community health and youth work in North America, Australia and the UK. This case looks at an example in the UK and in Australia and refers to others in North America. Work in inner city Bradford piloted a practical approach to assessing the capacity of communities to take lead roles in regeneration and local action.
The ‘community strengths assessment’ approach focuses particularly on local community and voluntary groups. It looks at how they are organised, their aims and needs, existing support and what support they might need in future. The approach involves comprehensive local surveys which provide detailed information leading to recommendations for action. Independent consultants assisted staff from Bradford Council in developing the approach.
Community strengths assessments focus on community and voluntary groups not individuals. Whilst individuals have a part to play, this approach sees effective community involvement and leadership as being built primarily through the collective activity of local community and voluntary groups.
The assessment contains two main elements – level of community organisation and level of support. In combination, these help build a comprehensive and detailed picture of community capacity, and highlight gaps in both activity and infrastructure that can be acted on through new initiatives and planning.
A handbook arising from the project describes, in clearly laid out steps how to carry out a community strengths assessment. It is published by the Community Development Foundation. Assessing community strengths: A practical handbook for planning capacity building, by Steve Skinner and Mandy Wilson, is available from the Community Development Foundation, 60 Highbury Road, London N5 2AG, Tel 020 7226 5375 (price £17.95 plus £1.80 p&p, ISBN 1
901974 31 6)
Resources
http://www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/housing/242.asp
An Australian Case Study is written up in case 42 of this series. For North American examples see Case Study 2 and also Youth Health Approaches
http://www.searchinstitute.org/research/assets/Peer.Articles.pdf
'Work in inner city Bradford piloted a practical approach to assessing the capacity of communities to take lead roles in regeneration and local action”
Contact Details
Mandy Wilsonmail@cogs.solis.co.uk
tel: 0114-255 4747
Website: http://www.cogs.uk.net/