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What is Community Development? |
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What is community development work?
The key purpose of community development work is collectively to bring about social change and justice, by working with communities to:
- Identify their needs, opportunities, rights and responsibilities
- Plan, organise and take action
- Evaluate the effectiveness and impact of the action
All in ways which challenge oppression and tackle inequalities
What are the Standards?
The National Occupational Standards outline clearly the Skills, Values and Practice Principles required for community development work and have been developed to provide a guide and a reference point for best practice.
The Standards provide the basis from which we can promote effective and appropriate community development work practice. We need to use these Standards with confidence to argue for values and processes to be integral to the work.
The Federation for Community Development Learning (FCDL) will work with practitioners, groups and organisations within the community,
voluntary and statutory sectors to ensure that the Standards continue to reflect good practice in community development work and the different contexts in which it takes place.
The Standards applied to practice will ensure that community development impacts on poverty, racism and social exclusion in a way that
empowers, enables and encourages participation.
The Standards are for use by
- Community development workers and community activists
- Individuals/organisations adopting a community development approach in their work
- voluntary management committees
- employers of community development workers
- funders of community development work
- community development education & training providers.
The Values of Community Development Work are: Social Justice - Respecting and valuing diversity and difference
- Challenging oppressive and discriminatory actions and attitudes
- Addressing power imbalances between individuals, within groups and society
- Committing to pursue civil and human rights for all
- Seeking and promoting policy and practices that are just and enhance equality whilst challenging those that are not.
Sustainable Communities - Promoting the empowerment of individuals and communities
- Supporting communities to develop their skills to take action
- Promoting the development of autonomous and accountable structures
- Learning from experiences as a basis for change
- Promoting effective collective and collaborative working
- Using resources with respect for the environment
Self-determination - Valuing the concerns or issues that communities identify as their starting points
- Raising people’s awareness of the range of choices open to them, providing opportunities for discussion of implications of options
- Promoting the view that communities do not have the right to oppress other communities
- Working with conflict within communities.
Participation - Promoting the participation of individuals and communities, particularly those traditionally marginalised/excluded
- Recognising and challenging barriers to full and effective participation
- Supporting communities to gain skills to engage in participation
- Developing structures that enable communities to participate effectively
- Sharing good practice in order to learn from each other.
Working and Learning Together - Demonstrating that collective working is effective
- Supporting and developing individuals to contribute effectively to communities
- Developing a culture of informed and accountable decision making
- Ensuring all perspectives within the community are considered
- Sharing good practice in order to learn from each other
Reflective Practice - Promoting and supporting individual and collective learning through reflection on practice
- Changing practice in response to outcomes of reflection
- Recognising the constraints and contexts within which community development takes place
- Recognising the importance of keeping others informed and updated about the wider context
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