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Asset Based Community Development…

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Last week I ran a workshop for the Yorkshire and Humber Community Development Network on Asset Based Community Development (ABCD), what it is, and why we should think about it.

And one of the questions I got was ‘What is the relevance of ABCD to health promotion?’

An excellent question.

But first let’s establish what we mean by ‘asset based community development’.  Or even ‘community development’.  But wait, can we even agree on ‘community’? Or ‘development’?

Community development, at its best, helps individuals and groups of people develop the power that they need to make the progress they choose in their own lives.

This is done either through a focus on ‘assets’ or a focus on ‘needs’, giving us ‘asset based community development’ or ‘needs (or deficit) based community development’.  The following table gives some examples of assets and needs as they might be described in relation to individuals and communities.

assets and needs in personal and community development

So, in ABCD we start with what people and the community already have and with what they want to achieve, individually or collectively.  Development starts where the people are, and works with what they have got.  It embraces a philosophy that says we already have everything that we need in order to make progress. “Start change from where you are, and with what you’ve got.”

On the other hand, needs based community development starts with some sort of judgement of what is wrong with a community or individual.  What is missing.  This takes the form of some sort of assessment, usually done by an external agency, with a view to working out what needs to be fixed and how this might be achieved.  The vast majority of what is described as ‘community development’ work in the UK takes this needs based form.  It starts from a philosophy that says  ‘we know what is good for the community/individual and we will work to bring it about’.    It might be characterised as ‘Start from where we want you to be, and work with what we give you’.  The vast majority of health promotion work is close to this needs based model.  These needs based projects often use the tools and techniques of ‘community development’ recruiting local champions, building interest groups and generally doing what is needed to achieve the funders policy goals.  But is it community development?  Does it give people and groups the power to work on their agendas, or does it merely seduce them into working on the agendas of the funder?  And if course when the funder runs out of money, or the policy goal changes the community development stalls.

It is worth noticing that if you adopt a need based approach your stance will essentially have to be one of nagging, nudging or nannying however carefully you present it.  Whereas if you choose an asset based approach your role will be to facilitate, coordinate and connect.

So what would an ‘asset based’ approach to health development look like?

Well first of all it would not be on the agenda just because a funder had identified a need.  It would only be on the agenda if local people or groups recognised that they needed to work on health issues in order to make the progress that they want to make.  This implies that funders would need to learn to respond to the self-determined needs , or wants, of the community.  They need to understand working responsively as well as their more usual strategic perspective.

Health would be negotiated alongside enterprise, culture, employment and many other topics that the community may wish to address.  The development agenda in an asset based approach is much more likely to be holistic, whole system and person centred.  This contrasts with need based approaches which frequently lack integration, only work on part of the system and are centred on policy goals rather than people and their aspirations

An asset based approach, starting from where we are, working with what we have got, would be much less sensitive to the changing funding priorities of policy makers and is more likely to enable prolonged and steady progress.  It is also much more likely to build long-lasting social capital, of all types.

So why then are so many, the overwhelming majority in fact, of community development projects ‘needs based’ rather than ‘asset based’?  Well it has little to do with efficacy, in my opinion, and everything to do with accommodating the policy goals, timescales and resources of funders.

With the asset based approach you never really know what issues you may end up working on or what might be achieved. And, regardless of what might be done to help individuals and groups of people develop the power that they need to make the progress they choose in their own lives, which funder is going to invest in a methodology that will not allow them to tightly control outcomes, milestones and resources?

32 (Tentative) Beliefs About Community Development

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  1. Development occurs when people change their habits, patterns, attitudes and perhaps most importantly behaviours.
  2. Community development is a function of the number of individuals who are changing their habits, patterns, attitudes and perhaps most importantly behaviours.
  3. Sometimes there is lots of individual development but no community development – we have a steady state.  For example if the number of people that break an addiction are matched by the number of people that take up that addiction we have lots of individual development but no community development.
  4. We only get community development when individuals’ personal development is in some way aligned.  This alignment is a process of finding common cause.  Negotiation of self interest is critical in developing community.
  5. The ‘direction’ of both personal and community development may be progressive, regressive or neutral.  Sometimes it can be hard to tell.
  6. Personal development is always in pursuit of ‘self interest’, which may, or may not, be ‘rightly understood’.
  7. Long term self interest is frequently sacrificed on the alter of short term self interest: ‘live only for today for tomorrow may never come’.
  8. People change their habits, patterns, attitudes and behaviours all of the time in relation to changes in their environment – development in this case is driven externally.  The locus of control is external and the individual is essentially manipulated by their environment.
  9. This externally driven change is the paradigm on which most personal development, community development and public policy is based – it is the world of nudging, nannying, infrastructure and service development in order to achieve behaviours specified and desired by ‘The Anointed’.  It usually makes communities less enterprising.
  10. Many of us are happy to work with an external locus of control, because it let’s us off the hook.  In this context my progress depends on others.  ‘I’ am more or less out of the equation
  11. While it is tempting to nudge, nanny and legislate to encourage ‘development’ it is a temptation that should be yielded to rarely.  It is in many cases, counter-productive.
  12. Instead, perhaps we should choose to provoke reflection and the analysis of self interest.
  13. People can also choose to change their habits, patterns, attitudes and behaviours because they recognise that such a change is in their self interest – development in this case is driven internally.  The locus of control in this case is internal and it provides the individual with a sense of agency and power over their own lives.  People with a primarily internal locus of control are usually experienced as ‘enterprising’.
  14. Self interest is not selfishness.  Self interest is about ‘self amongst others’.  Pursuing self interest is about pursuing what matters personally in the context of a community.  It demands compassion, empathy and values if it is not to be merely personal greed and selfishness.  Selfishness is self interest wrongly understood.
  15. In order to achieve community development we must increase the number of people for whom an internal locus of control drives their personal development and help them to support each other in common cause.
  16. Community development is accelerated when individuals learn to associate, collaborate and co-operate in pursuit of mutual self interest.
  17. When people change their habits, patterns, attitudes and behaviours we call this Learning.
  18. Learning is at the heart of Personal and Community Development.
  19. All real learning is driven by self interest.
  20. If the rate of learning is greater than the rate of change in the environment then progress becomes possible.
  21. If the rate of learning is less than the rate of change in the environment then regression is inevitable.
  22. Learning depends on both the acquisition of  existing knowledge and the generation of insights and the creation of new knowledge through reflection and enquiry.  Most of our communities and their education systems value the acquisition of knowledge over the processes of reflection and enquiry.
  23. ‘The community’, or more accurately our peer group, shapes what types of learning are acceptable.   This is an important aspect of community culture.
  24. Swapping one peer group for another can be a powerful catalyst for personal development.
  25. Building peer groups that have primarily an internal locus of control can be helpful.  These peer groups are ‘community’.
  26. In some communities it is OK to be aspirational and believe in the power of progress and change.  These are communities with an internal locus of control – they believe they can shape their own futures.
  27. In some communities such positive attitudes are, more or less, discouraged as they challenge the dominant belief that things are the way they are because of other people.  These communities prefer to blame others, including The Anointed for their circumstances.  This is one reason why so many communities see ‘The Council’ as outsiders.  It is ‘their’ fault.  It is the fault of other communities.  It is the fault of the Government. Or Europe.
  28. Development always happens in all communities – but its focus is often on the maintenance of the status quo in a changing environment rather than the pursuit of progress.
  29. Community developers often avoid tricky conversations about self interest by convening individuals around a ‘common good’ such as a project to refurbish a playground for example.  This results in the establishment of a local group of the anointed and further reinforces the external locus of control.
  30. Much of what is called community development work these days is NOT community development.  It appropriates the tools and processes of community development in order to pursue the objectives of the state.
  31. Much of what passes for ’empowerment’ is actually those with power nagging those without power to ‘pull their (metaphorical) socks up’.  We can create the conditions in which individuals and communities build their own power.  But we cannot easily give them ours.
  32. Community development depends on the personal development of both self interest, rightly understood, and the power to pursue it

I am sure that there is more.  Much more.

But perhaps there is enough here already to suggest a basis for radical and empowering approaches to community  and personal development.

  • What do you think?

Frugality, smart cities and social justice….I really should apologise

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I really should apologise…

Last night at TEDxLeeds we had some really excellent presentations including one from IBM’s Rashik Parmar on Smarter Cities that included a great little video on the stupidity of food supply logistics…

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1DAR5wW19Eg]

Rashik then went on to talk about how ‘sustainability’ and an era of ‘frugality’ will  impact on how we might build a smarter city.

Which is where I lost it.  A little.

We are in the throws of an investment of £1.25bn into a two new shopping centres and an Arena for Leeds.

Sustainability?  Frugality?  Localism?

An additional million square feet of retail space,  and 13500 seats to be sold at least 100 nights a year at an average ticket price of perhaps £30?  And a further £15m is to be invested in a southern entrance to the station (pedestrian only) when the existing 2 entrances are shambolic.

Now the shopping centres will be funded entirely out of private money I believe.  And investors have no doubt done the research to suggest that even in times of frugality they are an investment that will pay off.  Because the frugality is not for all of us.  We are not all in frugality together.  Nor sustainability.

The southern entrance to the station will be paid for by money from central government and local transport bodies (don’t ask me if they are public or private – but I suspect it is either our taxes or our fares one way or another).  But it is an investment that will reduce travel times for an estimated 20% of the stations users who need to access  Granary Wharf, Holbeck Urban Village or the City Inn.  Now I would be gobsmacked if those destinations counted for 20% of station passengers – but I will go with it.

And how will it reduce journey times?

By meaning that passengers will no longer have to walk for perhaps 5 minutes and pass through the recently refurbished Neville Street and under the Dark Arches to get south of the river.

This at a time, and over a timescale, when 1 in 6 council workers will be made redundant to save £150m over the next 4 years….

1 in 6 council workers being laid off and we spend £15m so that those who can still commute to a job have a shorter walk.

So I asked a question.

I asked whether this sounded like it was smart strategy for a city facing challenges of sustainability and frugality?  Apparently that is a political question….one on which Rashik would not be drawn.

Perhaps  now is not a time for ‘political’ questions….

I think that it is.  But, perhaps I am the minority.

Now where was that Derek Sivers video on starting a movement?

Yorkshire Musician’s Social Media Surgery

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This was yet another event pulled together by John Popham and inspired by the social media surgery format.
It was a great example of a peer to peer support mechanism with everyone getting something from the event.  The Round Foundry who provided the room, got to showcase their wonderfully flexible building and to prove once again how great they are as people.  Social media bods got richly entertained by musicians.  Musicians learned a bit from social media bods. Event sponsors  http://get-ctrl.com get to raise awareness for their service,  local business Out of the Woods get to sell a few platters of wonderful canapés and it seems that everyone is a winner.
No evaluation forms, no sign in sheets, no evidence of GVA created, jobs retained or any of the usual nonsense to be sent to a funder for rubber stamping to release funds.
No event management teams handing out name badges and ticking  lists.
No pop up banners reminding everyone how great we are in providing this service and ramming an expensive, publicly funded brand down their necks.
Just a great experience shared by people who might not otherwise have met, networks built and strengthened, opportunities uncovered, smiles on faces, tunes in hearts and I suspect some really talented people who now have ideas about how to get their music heard and perhaps some more revenue too.  We have known for a long time that conviviality matters.  But mainstream business support rarely manages to achieve it.
No ‘gurus’ or accredited advisers either!  There is a debate about the future of business support in which I advocate for a greater emphasis on peer to peer networks and problem based learning as more cost effective ways to support enterprise than a model based on professional business advisers and brokerage.  And the main criticism of what I am advocating is that ‘we can’t assure the quality of the advice given’.  Well apart from not being entirely true (we use an informal peer review to check out the quality of our work in social media surgeries) it also shows a lack of faith in the ability of lay people to help other lay people make progress.  Information is offered on a caveat emptor, or ‘you might want to think about…’ basis, and people are advised to talk with more than one surgeon to get a different perspective.  In short, people are taught how to get value from ‘would be’ helpers.
And when we look at advisory regimes that are fully quality assured, supervised and regulated – like the finance industry – are we really supposed to think that this is a model that provides guarantees of quality?
Let’s just open every single event with a reminder from Buddha – “Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.”

Wrong Thinking in Big Society?

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It is an easy mistake to make.  The argument for it goes something like this…

If we want to make Big Society work we have to get more citizens ‘connected‘ to ‘place’ and ‘people’.  We have to encourage civic pride and a culture of helping for the common good.  We need to get more of us running libraries, volunteering and generally being good eggs.  We need more people to be more selfless.

But I think this is wrong thinking.

The primary challenge is not about connecting us to ‘people’ and ‘place’.  This maybe necessary but is certainly not sufficient, and if done without the right pre-conditions will only result in rustling up the usual overburdened suspects and urging them to ‘do more’.

The challenge is to tackle apathy and hopelessness. To help people who currently see themselves as ‘victims of a broken society’ to become active architects of a better one.

To connect more of us to our own sense of self: our own sense of potential, aspiration, vision and possibility.  Armed with a sense of agency and purpose in relation to our own lives then association, mutuality and cooperation, all of those factors that lead to the emergence of community will surely follow, as we realise that our own progress is tied up with the progress of our neighbours.

It is when we have given up on ourselves that we also give up on our communities.

How does this wrong thinking manifest itself in practice?

Well, for example, when we ask ‘communities’ what they need. Almost inevitably they will agree on a lowest common denominator project that makes a little difference to a lot of people but ducks the real issues that really blights lives.  So we get a community group lobbying for a new playground instead of tackling the real challenges that they face – like how to put breakfast on the table every morning, or how to get their children to study at school, or how to escape from violence.  These things are just too painful and personal to talk about in group meetings with well-meaning strangers.

We have to recognise that communities appear when large numbers of individuals are working on what really, REALLY matters to them, working collectively in pursuit of their own self-interest, rightly understood.

When we get the balance right between looking after yourself and looking after your neighbour.