Community Development and Child Welfare

An Integrated Perspective on Social Work Practice

CSWE ConferencePortland, Oregon, October 14, 2010

Three-phased workshopO

neCommunity Development Approaches: Elements, Principles, and Resources

TwoApplication to

child welfare practice/teaching Thre

eRole play/exercise

What is community development?• It involves people who live and

work in a place in planning and carrying out projects that make their community stronger.

• These people– Study the community’s assets

and problems– Make goals for building up the

assets and solving the problems– Choose action steps to achieve

the goals– Carry out the action steps– Evaluate and learn from their

actions

Beginning elements• ABCD as a critique of human services and outlook

emphasizing gifts and assets of individuals and community groups

• FBCD as a critique of forces that diminish productive and creative family roles and an outlook that emphasizes creative and productive family roles

• Risk-focused prevention (Communities that Care)• Improving family capacity to manage assets and generate

income seen as essential for creating safe environments for children and for furthering child development

• UN Rights of the Child as a comprehensive foundation

ABCD Map of Community Needs

Unemployment Housing Projects

Poverty

Uninsured

Illiteracy

Child Abuse

Truancy

Crime

Teen Mothers Gang Members

Mentally Ill School Dropouts

Homeless

Delinquency

Labeled People

Kretzmann & McKnight, 1993. Building Communities from the Inside Out, Chicago, IL: Acta Publications

ABCD Perspective

• Every person has gifts• Real community is built on relationships• Professionals must “step back”• Leaders involve others as active members of the community• Begin with what people care about• Find the motivations to act• Start small with those who respond to initial “call”• Hold listening conversations• A citizen centered organization is the key to community engagement• Institutions tend to crowd out citizens and informal associations• Institutions have reached their limits in problem-solving• Institutions must assume the posture of servanthood

Assumptions of Family-Based CD• Strong families essential to accomplishment of CD goals• Family viability requires some control of productive and creative

assets• Families exist in many forms• Some families require help with roles, relationships,

communication, and internal functioning• Families co-create or co-produce solutions to problems with

agencies, schools, local government, businesses, and other families

• Sustainable development principles aid in resource conservation, renewal, productive uses of habitat, self-sufficiency, and entrepreneurship

Goals of Family-Based CD

• To build thick, productive roles for mothers, fathers, and other family members

• To create diverse, productive, sustainable family institutions• To establish communication networks among families, as well

as among families and community institutions• To build host settings for families into community institutions• To engage families, other community members, and community

institutions in place-based planning• To craft public policies that support and protect productive

family roles and capacities in community developmentKordesh, 2006. Restoring Power to Parents and Places, New York, NY: iUniverse

What are productive family habitats?

• Housing, structures linked to housing, land used by families for business, agricultural, and educational purposes.

• Further family self-sufficiency• Link work and family life• Two dimensions of being productive:

– What the people do– What the plants, buildings, and technology do to

produce and conserve energy, resources

• Family enterprises are strengthened• Families are empowered to care for

themselves and their neighbors • Families work together to grow food or bring

water or other resources to the community• Families pass down their traditions and beliefs

to their children

Community development works best when …

Steps in Family-Based Community Development

• How many families• How many with children• Married, divorced, or unmarried• Ages of heads of household• How many with single and dual parents• Presence of elders• How many persons per family household• Types of employment

Identify and describe the families

• Teaching skills• Building skills• Problem solving skills• Skills in caring for others• Skills in growing food• Skills in making things• Selling skills• Bargaining skills

Identify Family Skills & Knowledge

• Ask people in their roles as mothers, fathers, grandparents, sons, daughters

• Hold learning conversations• Find out what they care about as family

members– With respect to own families– With respect to community

• Consider a circle of family leadership

Identify what families care about

• Houses• Tools• Donkeys• Land• Cooking utensils• Computers• Telephones

• Coffee ceremony table • Chairs, benches, and

tables• Other furniture• Carts• Cars or taxis

Write down the productive assets of families in their own habitats

• Training and support for micro-businesses• Obtain or improve space for production • Provide opportunities to acquire tools, carts,

or other productive assets• Advocate for good quality and stable housing• Provide opportunities for shared productive

spaces and other assets• Provide literacy and skills training to families

Identify steps to strengthen families as producers

Analyze the strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities facing families as producers in the community

Strengths

Opportunities

Weaknesses

Threats

SWOT Analysis & Productive Family Tasks

Strengths Weaknesses Opportunities Threats

Producing Care for SickCreating businessesMaking areas near home safeTeaching traditionsMaking decisions about community

• Training and support for micro-businesses• Obtain or improve space for production • Provide opportunities to acquire tools, carts,

or other productive assets• Advocate for good quality and stable housing• Provide opportunities for shared productive

spaces and other assets• Provide literacy and skills training to families

Identify steps to strengthen families as producers

• Incubators for family enterprises• Food production associations involving urban

gardens• Family resource centers in or linked to schools• Family producer cooperatives• Family safety or protection networks

Define strategies to help families organize as producers

Family resource center

Spaces for co-production

Planning similar to ABCD

Family resource

center

Resource room

Meeting space

IGA space

Clinic

• Parents as leaders, including board members

• Families as planners and designers

• Built out of inclusive, learning conversations

• Education• Children’s health• Child development• Food• Income• Civic habits

Other “goods” families must help to co-produce

When families are too weak to be producers, there is an

empty space in the community. They can’t be replaced by associations or

networks or NGOs.

CD AS RISK-FOCUSED PREVENTION BUILDS POSITIVE INFLUENCES ON CHILD AND YOUTH DEVELOPMENT

Buffers and protective factors can be created through formal programs or informal practices

Risk factor

Risk factor

Risk factor

Vulnerable person or group

Protective factor

Protective factor

Risk Factors

• Exposure increases likelihood of harmful behaviors– Unhealthy or harmful behaviors by children– Unhealthy or harmful behaviors by adults

• Risk factors exist at different levels of person’s environment– Individual– Peers– Family– Community

Example of risk-focused framework Researcher s have found in the US that children ages 10-18 are more likely to engage in problem behaviors if they are exposed to certain risk factors at the levels of individual, school, family, and community.

In other countries, the risk factors that make children vulnerable to abuse or exploitation would differ in certain ways, and might be similar in some ways as well.

Communities that Care approach created by J David Hawkins and Richard F. Catalano, Jr., now a programs of the US Department of Health and Human Services.

The Social Development StrategyThe social development strategy is designed to organize communities around efforts to create diverse and mutually reinforcing activities – informal and formal efforts – to ultimately encourage healthy behavior by children and youth.

It can also be applied to a community when the desired results are child protection and child resilience.

The abuse or exploitation of children would be seen as emerging from risk factors at the individual, family, and community levels.

Communities that Care approach created by J David Hawkins and Richard F. Catalano, Jr., now a programs of the US Department of Health and Human Services.

Linking ABCD with risk-focused prevention

Assets and gifts as protective factors

• Positive relationships• Social skills• Household assets and tools• Economic skills• Cultural traditions that

provide positive meaning and hope

Building assets builds protective factors when …

• They strengthen positive social bonds

• They teach skills to aid in mutual support

• They enable assets to be used productively

• They further economic self-sufficiency

• They give positive meaning to everyday productive activities

Integration of content fieldsInternal family

dynamics

Sustainable housing &

habitat

Family enterprise

development

Family asset building

CD process

Community assessment

It flows from the assessment phase• Family assessments

– Roles and relationships, communication patterns, power dynamics– Assets – financial, habitat, tools, skills, knowledge

• Community assessments– Roles and relationships, communication patterns, networks,

leadership and power dynamics, risk factors– Assets – financial, habitat, tools, micro-institutions, skills,

knowledge, buffers against risk factors• Policy assessment

– Relevant systems– Funding streams

From the assessment flow …

• Goals for sustainability, roles and relationship building, asset building, network building, enterprise formation, and others

• Strategies at the family (social dynamics), asset, habitat, co-production, planning, and policy levels

• Operational steps • Evaluation and feedback

Father Mother

Brother/son Sister/daughter

dadaughter

Employer

Community garden

Practitioner

Neighbors

School

Teamm

Band

Enterprise

Local finance institution

Family Social Assessment Can Bridge to Assessment of Productive Capacities, Relationships, and Risk Factors

Resources on-line

• ABCD• Family-Based CD• Risk-Focused Prevention• Integrated Community Development-Child We

lfare Project

Contact Richard Kordesh:rskordesh@bluehouseinstitute.org

Putting It All TogetherChild Welfare Community Development

(CW-CD)By

James L. Scherrer, PhD, LCSW

Adapted from Henderson, P. (1997). Community development and children: A contemporary agenda. In C. Cannan & C. Warren (Eds.). Social action with children and families: A community development approach to child and family welfare. New York:

Routledge, pages 23-42.

Asset Based Community Development

• Formulation of goals and strategies to make a neighborhood, village or other small place a good setting for parents to raise children

• Involves people who live and work in a place in planning and implementing projects that make the community stronger

Asset-Based Community Development

• These people:– Study a community's assets and challenges– Set goals for increasing the assets and

managing the challenges– Choose action steps to achieve the goals– Implement the action steps– Evaluate and adjust based on the evaluation

Family-Based Community Development

• A “family” is:– A group of people who are socially and

economically interdependent• AND

– Which exercises social control over its members• AND

– Is involved in raising children

Family-Based Community Development

• Engages families who live in the community– To increase their productive capacity– To become co-builders of their communities– To develop co-producer relationships with

• Schools• Local Government• Businesses• Non-Profit Organizations• NGOs

Child Welfare Community Development

• Communities are comprised of people who share a similar– Identity– Problem– Interest

• These people may, or may not, live in close proximity to each other

Child Welfare Community Development

• Families in the community have assets that can be developed and used to address threats to the– Safety– Health– Well-being

• of children that exist in their– Environment– Neighborhood– Living spaces

Child Welfare Community Development

• Integrates “working with children” with– Economic programs– Regeneration programs

• Supports and strengthens communities– Brings people together – Develops a sense of community identity– Articulates resources and needs– Creates interconnected relationships

Child Welfare Community Development

• Creates accessibility– Small scale is essential– Safe and developmentally appropriate lines of

communication between children and adults– Children are involved in community activities

and projects– Children participate in decision-making– Clear, jargon-free language used

Child Welfare Community Development

• Integrates the social and economic– Community-based crime and drug prevention

programs– Resources for children's play areas

• Children and adults actively involved in their– Design– Location– Management

Child Welfare Community Development

• Integrates the social and economic, cont.– Neighborhood centers which provide a mix of

• Advice• Information• Meeting point• Safety

– Places children at the center of social inclusion strategies that contain a significant community development strategy

– Combines income related work for children and their families with the positive involvement of children in their communities

Child Welfare Community Development

• Builds alliances– Organizations that focus on families should develop

relationships with each other – Children's rights supports cross-organizational work

in community development and the needs of children

– Widens perspective on child protection to include prevention

– Develops services that enhance children's general quality of life

Child Welfare Community Development

• Community Groups and Children– Assume that communities and children will

participate in resource building– Adults can be found who are prepared to struggle

for a better future for their children• Children need good quality play areas• Children need safety• Children need places to gather• Children need an appropriate and effective

education• Children need a sense of well-being

Child Welfare Community Development

• Sample Assignments• First third of course:• Complete Asset Based Community

Assessment Form (see handout)• Second third of course:• Complete Family Assessment in

Community identified in first Third (see handout)

Training Assignment

•Describe how these environmental circumstances impact children and families•Develop a role play illustrating• The challenges experienced by children in these circumstances• A positive community and family based response

•Homeless Children 9 & 10•Domestic Violence 3 & 11•Single-Parent Home 2 & 6•Child Headed Family 12, 8 & 7•Child Prostitution 13 & 16•Poverty 4 & 14•Child Abuse 6 & 8

My Contact Information

• Dr. James L. Scherrer• jscherrer@dom.edu• Dominican University• 7200 West Division Street• River Forest, Illinois 60305• 1-708-714-9104 office• 1-708-297-5726 cell