From sarena@u.washington.edu Wed Aug 6 22:26:29 1997 Received: from jason04.u.washington.edu (root@jason04.u.washington.edu [140.142.78.5]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW97.05) with ESMTP id WAA16930 for ; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 22:26:28 -0700 Received: from homer31.u.washington.edu (sarena@homer31.u.washington.edu [140.142.78.17]) by jason04.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW97.05) with ESMTP id WAA13082 for ; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 22:26:27 -0700 Received: from localhost (sarena@localhost) by homer31.u.washington.edu (8.8.4+UW97.07/8.8.4+UW97.04) with SMTP id WAA49492 for ; Wed, 6 Aug 1997 22:26:26 -0700 Date: Wed, 6 Aug 1997 22:26:26 -0700 (PDT) From: Sarena Seifer To: ccp@u.washington.edu Subject: approaches to community development Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Hello everyone - I'm sorry I was unable to make last week's Community-Campus Partnerships seminar and business meeting. Catherine Brozowski will be posting notes from the meeting when she returns from her vacation next week. I understand the discussion centered around the topic of community development. I saved the following from another listserv and thought it might interest you. I'm most familiar with John McKnight's asset-based approach to community development - have any of you applied this or the other models below in your community-campus partnerships? John McKnight was the closing keynote speaker at our conference earlier this year - we are now collaborating with him on an article about health professional schools as community-building assets. Sarena Community-Campus Partnerships for Health UW Department of Medical Education Tue, 22 Jul 97 16:38:47 CDT From: steve larrick (1) ASSET-BASED COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT -- based on the philosophy that "communities cannot be rebuilt by focusing on their needs, problems, and deficiencies. Rather, community-building starts with the process of locating the assets, skills and capacities of residents, citizens associations, and local institutions." A key book describing this approach is: Kretzman, John and John McKnight. BUILDING COMMUNITIES FROM THE INSIDE OUT: A Path Toward Finding and Mobilizing a Community's Assets. (Chicago: ACTA Publications, 1993) (2) FIXING BROKEN WINDOWS -- based on the belief that when we ignore broken windows, trash and other signs of disorder in our neighborhoods, people passing by sense that nobody cares about the area and that it must not be very safe. Gradually, the sense of disorder grows into increasing levels of anti-social behavior and crime. Preventive measures can help maintain a higher quality of neighborhood life. A key book describing this approach is: Kelling, George L. and Catherine M. Coles. FIXING BROKEN WINDOWS: Restoring Order and Reducing Crime in Our Communities. (New York: The Free Press, 1996). (3) SOCIAL CAPITAL: Robert Putnam wrote an important article on "social capital" entitled "Bowling Alone", that appeared in the JOURNAL OF DEMOCRACY. The article describes the diminishing level of civic involvement (social capital) in the U.S., as illustrated by the increasing number of Americans that bowl alone, rather than on teams in bowling leagues. He gives many other examples as well. He later wrote a more comprehensive book on social capital in Italy. The book is: Putnam, Robert. MAKING DEMOCRACY WORK: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993). Putnam argues that political life in northern Italy is healthier than in the south because of the proliferation of civic groups that create a healthy web of social interaction. (4) NEIGHBORS HELPING NEIGHBORS: This is an approach that seeks to build communities "one neighbor at a time." The following book is a starting place for an argument about how "neighborliness" can help solve many of our social ills: U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services. NEIGHBORS HELPING NEIGHBORS: A New National Strategy for the Protection of Children. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1993). What began as a strategy for protecting children is now growing into a broader strategy for re-weaving the fabric of communities and strengthening the social networks that promote healthy communities. A leader in this approach appears to be the Institute for Families in Society at the University of South Carolina. .