Community Development in the Future
In this final post in the current community development sequence, I discuss community development in the future.
My ebook, “Community Development is Dead!” (see below) is my account of the current state of community development in England. Other places recognise many of the issues we experience in England.
The problem is not funding. We have seen a decline in support from local authorities and churches over the last 20-30 years.
However, even this is a symptom of the decline in support for community development in England. The real problem as I explain in “Community Development is Dead!” runs deeper. The failure is systemic. It stems from the failure of development workers to make the case for community development. There is no career structure for development workers.
It is predictable, as money becomes scarce, activities unable to make a case for themselves will suffer. This is the mindset that sees community development as a luxury, something we cannot afford in a recession. Community development as an amateur pursuit, a view supported by the lack of career structure, means experienced workers move on to other better paid activities, leaving inexperienced workers unsupported.
We need to reconsider the way we do community development, by placing activists at the centre and asking how to support them. In future, fewer workers will be less likely to work in neighbourhoods.
Community Development Online
One alternative may be online work, where development workers can provide support through online consultancy. This will differ from traditional development work because it implies activists supported by development workers will do most of the work previously carried out by development workers.
So, for example, a situation analysis might be carried out by local people. The development worker might help them plan their analysis and guide them as they accumulate information. Some will argue development workers will be less equipped to do the work if they are not doing local research themselves. Others may argue this is exactly what local activists should have done in the first place.
As an online community development worker, I can provide support to several projects, anywhere in the country at far less than the cost of employing a full-time worker. This might enable groups to employ administrators, for example, if they have funds and help them become more effective even with relatively few resources.
Can this possibly work? I believe it can and a few pioneers can develop this new approach (and indeed other new approaches).
If this new approach catches on, quality will become important. Practitioners who choose this new way of working will need to organise to agree standards and a career structure for workers. As my generation moves towards retirement, where is the next generation of experienced workers going to come from? There is likely to be more than one answer to this question, as practitioners attempt various approaches.
This blog is “Community Development Online” and so everything on it relates to community development in some sense. I’m sure I shall return to this sequence in the future but for now I shall be moving onto a new topic. Take a look next Wednesday to find out what it is!