Community Development
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
This essay will out line plans for a project based on Community Development (CD) principles to assess and address health inequalities within the Black African community. The chosen community to be involved with is the western part of Brockley (South East London) which consists three blocks of high rise flats within the estate. There are approximately 600 families living in this area.
The reason for choosing this community is of poor accessibility to services and high number of unemployment. The aim of this project is to empower the community to identify their needs and further sustain them, to facilitate the process for change and to build community strength (Labonte 1987). Helping communities to gain power involves capacity building and community action. - Laverack (2009) argues that to understand how a more empowering approach to public health practice can be applied in a collective context, it is first important to consider what a community is . This means thinking beyond the customary view of a community as a place where people live such as a village or neighbourhood because such areas can be an aggregate of non-connected people (Laverack 2009), but groups of people perceiving common needs and problems that acquire a sense of identity focused around these problems.
Ledwith (2006) defines a community as a complex system of interrelationships woven across social difference, diverse histories and cultures and determined in the present by political and social trends. For the purposes of this assignment I will refer to my involvement with this community as the practitioner. The purpose of CD is identified issues and problems affecting community life, to develop and implement plans for change.
CD is defined as strategy for attainment of social policy goals concerned with the worth and dignity of people and the promotion of equal opportunity. It is most needed in communities where social skills and resources are at their
This essay will out line plans for a project based on Community Development (CD) principles to assess and address health inequalities within the Black African community. The chosen community to be involved with is the western part of Brockley (South East London) which consists three blocks of high rise flats within the estate. There are approximately 600 families living in this area.
The reason for choosing this community is of poor accessibility to services and high number of unemployment. The aim of this project is to empower the community to identify their needs and further sustain them, to facilitate the process for change and to build community strength (Labonte 1987). Helping communities to gain power involves capacity building and community action. - Laverack (2009) argues that to understand how a more empowering approach to public health practice can be applied in a collective context, it is first important to consider what a community is . This means thinking beyond the customary view of a community as a place where people live such as a village or neighbourhood because such areas can be an aggregate of non-connected people (Laverack 2009), but groups of people perceiving common needs and problems that acquire a sense of identity focused around these problems.
Ledwith (2006) defines a community as a complex system of interrelationships woven across social difference, diverse histories and cultures and determined in the present by political and social trends. For the purposes of this assignment I will refer to my involvement with this community as the practitioner. The purpose of CD is identified issues and problems affecting community life, to develop and implement plans for change.
CD is defined as strategy for attainment of social policy goals concerned with the worth and dignity of people and the promotion of equal opportunity. It is most needed in communities where social skills and resources are at their