Civic Gemstones: The Emergent Communities Movement

Broadening Participation in Community Problem Solving: a Multidisciplinary Model to Support Collaborative Practice and Research

“…Consistent with the literature on civic problem solving, the model hypothesizes that communities need collaborative processes-like CHG-that are ongoing and iterative, include agenda setting as well as planning and action, and focus on multiple issues and problems. 22,28,32,38,47,50 Again, the proximal outcomes in the model help to explain why these particular process characteristics are important. Collaborative processes with an agenda-set-ting capacity have a greater potential to empower people than partnerships that focus on a predetermined problem because they enable participants to identify, and draw attention to, additional problems they care about that might otherwise be overlooked.…”

“…In fact, as Norris has noted, this approach is "below the radar screen" for most pundits and policymakers. 28 Why is this so? For one, success does not necessarily mean that the community could not have solved the problem just as well using more traditional, noncollaborative approaches.…”

“…17,[22][23][24][25][26] Without evidence showing that community engagement works-or for which kinds of problems it works-participatory approaches to civic problem solving have not been taken seriously by many policymakers. 2,27,28 Why are we in this predicament? For one, many efforts to broaden participation in community-level problem solving have been too short term or thinly resourced to reach a level at which their impacts can be fairly evaluated.…”

Pushing the Limits

“…Several years ago I published a report on the NIR measurement of talc in avicel at the parts per million level. 1 In that experiment I attempted to minimise the effects of non-homogeneity and packing density by measuring each sample 20 times with mixing of the sample between each scan. The 20 scans were then averaged for the analyses.…”

The healthy communities movement: A time for transformation

“…Over the last decades, there has been considerable agreement at most levels of government that the most serious problems facing society (violence, substance abuse, HIV) cannot be solved without community involvement. 28 Specific issue-focused coalitions have been created and supported by government (substance abuse and teen pregnancy prevention, and others); but the broader healthy community focus that is not targeted to preordained programs has been harder to fund. This is partly due to the more diffuse definition, and thus more unpredictable outcomes.…”