Communities first
Participation, asset-based development and community strategies.
Two and a half hours on working with communities rather than on them: social capital, honest engagement against Arnstein's ladder and building on local strengths.
- Level
- Focus
- Learning time
- 2 hours 30 minutes
- Where
- Working with Communities and Partnerships
- Price
- £69
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Read the full terms
Certificate of Completion, or Certificate of Completion and Assessment with a short assessment
Overview and Outcomes.
Who It's For
Leaders and officers in community engagement and place-based roles
Overview
Community is a word public services use every day and rarely examine. This programme offers a shared vocabulary, from four lenses on community and Putnam's bonding, bridging and linking social capital to Chaskin's community capacity framework. It tests engagement honestly against Arnstein's ladder and the IAP2 spectrum, drawing on the Sheffield street trees dispute, then turns to what is already strong in a place through McKnight and Kretzmann's asset-based community development and Cormac Russell's account of asset-based leadership. It closes with community strategies that deliver, community wealth building and the Preston Model.
Aims
This programme aims to help leaders work with communities rather than on them, recognising the communities they might otherwise miss, being honest about the influence on offer, and building on local strengths so that shared ambitions become delivery that residents can see.
In summary, you will be able to:
- Apply the four lenses on community, social capital and Chaskin's capacity framework to assess who your work reaches and whom it misses.
- Plan engagement that matches the rung of participation honestly to the power genuinely on offer, and closes the loop with communities afterwards.
- Assess your practice and your place against asset-based community development, the conditions for delivered community strategies and the lessons of the Preston Model.
What you'll develop
Through this Focus course, you will build the ability to:
- Apply the four lenses of geographic, interest, identity and practice communities to a real place, naming the communities your work is likely to miss.
- Distinguish bonding, bridging and linking social capital and explain why many engagement failures are linking capital failures.
- Describe Arnstein's eight rungs and three tiers and identify which rung a piece of engagement is actually operating on.
- Compare the promises made at each level of the IAP2 spectrum and check delivered participation against what was promised.
- Apply McKnight and Kretzmann's five building blocks to map the assets already present in a place, and distinguish this from stakeholder mapping.
- Distinguish a wish list from a delivered community strategy using the four requirements of shared vision, narrow priorities, a named delivery mechanism and a review cycle.
Built from 2 parts.
2 hours 30 minutes of learning.
- 01Rungs of real influenceCommunity and the Participation LadderBitesize2 modules
- 02Building on what is strongAsset-based community development (ABCD)Bitesize2 modules
Keep going.
Part of the Working with Communities and Partnerships topic, also sold whole as Common cause.
Go deeper, and pay only the difference
- You are hereFocus, 2 hours 30 minutes, £69
- The whole topicExplore, Common cause, 6 hours, £129. Already own the Focus? You pay £60.
When you step up to a higher level, what you paid in the last 12 months for lower-level courses inside the bigger course comes off its price, in proportion to how much of each is inside it, whichever topic it's from. Courses at the same or a lower level don't give credit against each other. A Focus course or above always costs at least £15. Prices per person. Read the full terms
Also part of: Serving your community well, Stronger together