Now the election is over and the new Coalition Government is in place, YHCDN is asking the Yorkshire and Humber MP’s to sign up to the principles of our proposal; the one which places community development at the heart of real empowerment for communities as part of the democratic process.
Community Development is a challenging, innovative and liberating process that seeks to involve and support individuals and communities to address their needs and fulfil their aspirations. Community Development can provide the building blocks for stronger civil society and engaged communities, and the practice of Community Development is integral to achieving all political parties' dreams of greater civic engagement, and active communities.
Community Development makes a key contribution to increasing social networking, stimulating local action and the supporting the development of leadership within communities. These are all key ingredients of the ideals behind the Big Society.
We can cite many practical examples of the effectiveness of Community Development within communities - from combating the rise of racism and promoting community cohesion, to tackling health inequalities, to listening to local people’s ideas for tackling poverty and disadvantage and encouraging public bodies to jointly engage with solutions for such long term issues, including developing the ideas behind co-production at a local level.
Whilst some Community Development practitioners are paid to work within the most excluded communities, there are many more who are involved on a voluntary basis. Because Community Development is a grass roots / bottom up to tackling community issues it offers substantive ‘value for money’.
At a time of financial crisis and recession the skills of community development are more important than ever to build and sustain fair and equitable solutions and enable community cohesion and social justice.
Community Development practice provides an explicit connection between various policy initiatives, such as increased localism and localised leadership, by filling the vacuum created by a contraction in smaller public services, with its emphasis on voluntary activities and community led/ bottom up regeneration based on social networks rather than big budgets.
The purpose of this proposal is to demonstrate, promote and recommend the benefits of the community development process to Government, public agencies, the voluntary sector, community sector and local communities.
In particular YHCDN is asking you:
- To advocate for the drafting of a National Community Development Strategy.
- To campaign for a National Funding Strategy for Community Development work and learning and training.
- To encourage Yorkshire and Humber based Government and Public Agencies to actively support and promote the support of regional and local community development networks.
The Community Development Proposal
This proposal calls on the new Coalition Government to start work on:
- The drafting of a National Community Development Strategy which will a framework and legitimation for increased effective community development practice across the public, private and voluntary sectors at national, regional and local levels and enable community development to play its key role and make its unique contribution to a range of different policy and service areas including: empowerment, engagement, citizenship, housing, health, education and well- being.
- A National Funding Strategy for Community Development work, learning and training. This should provide national resources for community development training, apprenticeships and employer recognition of the skills required for community development.
- Enabling Government and Public Agencies in Yorkshire and Humber to actively support and promote community development within their areas of responsibility and enhance and promote the support and development of regional and local Community Development Networks.
All of this activity will be undertaken in co-operation with the two National Community Development organisations: Community Development Exchange, Federation for Community Development Learning.
What is YHCDN?
The Yorkshire and Humber Community Development Network (YHCDN) is one of the Regional Community Development Network’s in England for those who use a community development approach in its region. YHCDN is an independent network and is not affiliated to any political party.
The role of YHCDN is to:
- Act as a regional focal point and voice for community development.
- Provide networking opportunities, practice sharing events, workshops and conferences
- Work closely with other regional and national community development organisations, networks, agencies and other allies and partners to create a better understanding of the benefits of using a community development approach.
- Co-operate with others to increase accessible training provision.
- Promote the added strategic value of community development activity.
- Organise a website containing reports of all YHCDN events and activities, information on training available, information on what is happening in the region that impacts on communities, policy and practice news.
YHCDN encourages the participation of members in the organisation and operation of the network.
YHCDN is part of a network of networks comprising all the other English Regional Community Development Networks.
Definition of Community Development
Community Development is a long–term value based process which aims to address imbalances in power and bring about change founded on social justice, equality and inclusion.
The process enables people to organise and work together to:
- Identify their needs and aspirations
- Take action to exert influence on the decisions which affect their lives
- Improve the quality of their own lives, the communities which they live, and societies of which they are a part.
The Core Values of Community Development
The Community Development process is underpinned by a set of values on which all practice is based. Community Development practitioners need to relate these values to their roles and actions. There are five key values that underpin all community development practice:
Equality and Anti-discrimination
Community Development practice challenges structural inequalities and discriminatory practices. Community Development recognises that people are not the same, but they are all of equal worth and importance and therefore entitled to the same degree of respect and acknowledgement.
Social Justice
The aim of increasing social justice is an essential element of Community Development practice. It involves identifying and seeking to alleviate structural disadvantage and advocating strategies for overcoming exclusion, discrimination and inequality.
Collective Action
Community Development practice is essentially about working with and supporting groups of people, to increase their knowledge, skills and confidence so they can develop an analysis and identify issues which can be addressed through collective action.
Community Empowerment
Community Development practice seeks the empowerment of individuals and communities, through using the strengths of the community to bring about desired changes. It involves supporting people to become critical, creative, liberated and active participants, enabling them to take more control over their lives, their communities and their environment. This process is based on mutual respect and equal and genuine partnerships between all those involved.
Working and Learning Together
Community Development practice promotes a collective process which enables participants to learn from reflecting on their experiences; for example, examining to what extent particular activities helped them to achieve their aims, how well they had identified the needs, and what they could have done differently. Community Development learning is based on participatory and experiential processes with the aim of improving future Community Development practices. Community Development Learning and Community Development practice are inseparable; the practice informs the learning in an ongoing cycle.
So what is the distinctive contribution of community development and what is it CD Workers do?
- Help people see that they have common concerns about local or other public issues and they could benefit from working together. This encourages increases in social capital and co-operation.
- Help people to work together on their issues supporting them to plan and take actions and encouraging evaluation and reflection as a way of improving effectiveness, thus increasing more effective community activity.
- Support and develop independent groups across the community sector non-directively but within an ethical framework, and increase networking between groups. This activity stimulates learning between groups and a larger community sector.
- Promote the values of equity, inclusiveness, participation and cooperation throughout thus increasing participation, social capital and community cohesion.
- Empower people and their organisations to influence and transform public policies, services and all factors affecting the conditions of their lives. This leads to greater community engagement and influence and an improvement in the dialogue between communities and local authorities and the effectiveness of public policies.
- Advise and inform public authorities on community perspectives and assist them to work in genuine partnership and strengthen communities. This activity leads to the increased capacity of agencies, public authorities and professions to listen to and engage with communities. This activity also leads to increased resources for the community sector.
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