Teaching community development to social work students: a critical reflection

Mendes, Philip

doi:10.1093/cdj/bsn001

Cited by 39 publications

(43 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…Unlike the top-down model which is mainly defined by "outsiders," the bottom-up paradigm invokes the role of the local people in determining the type of intervention, priority setting, and implementation of the community programs. Also, this development paradigm concentrates on community empowerment (Flora & Flora, 1993;Mendes, 2009) and operates at the grassroots and not on the policy level (Brocklesby & Fisher, 2003).…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring the Impact of a Community Extension Program in the Philippines

Llenares¹,

Deocaris²

2018

MJLI

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Purpose-This study was designed to create platforms to train students in higher education to be caring and responsible citizens. This was an extension mission that aimed to tap into the expertise of academe and its knowledge to help the community. Based on the framework of academic of community empowerment, the researchers measured the long-term impact of a 44-month community extension program in the Philippines. The extension program described in this study was implemented between March 2009 and December 2015 to address the capacity-building needs of a low-income community. This paper highlights some key development activities which includes partnership with local government, training needs assessment through grassroots-level participation and design of practical education-training programs. Methodology-The study followed a descriptive research design. The Community Outcome Scale (COS) was developed to measure perceived knowledge, attitude, and lifestyle of the beneficiaries. Fifty-four community residents were purposively selected based on their attendance to the community-based education and training programs. The ANOVA method with post hoc analysis was employed to determine the differences between perceived knowledge, attitude, and lifestyle among residents, stratified according to the degree of completion of the training programs.

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Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Measuring the Impact of a Community Extension Program in the Philippines

Llenares¹,

Deocaris²

2018

MJLI

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“…In its more pragmatic institutional sense, it may be viewed as a means for mobilizing communities to join state or institutional initiatives that are aimed at alleviating poverty, solving social problems, strengthening families, fostering democracy, and achieving modernization and socio-economic development (Campfens 1997). According to Mendes (2008), community development is the "employment of community structures to address social needs and empower groups of people". It is a prime mover of people because it gets people to actively participate in issues that affect them.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding community development in Sekyere Central District, Ghana

Amakye

2017

Bandung: Journal of the Global South

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Community development is fundamentally about the development of community involving a sense of common identity, capacity and purpose. It can take the form of unpaid active citizenship with community members organizing themselves and taking on leadership roles. Community development emphasizes empowerment, equality, social justice, participation and representation. This means that community development is fundamentally concerned with decision-making processes affecting users, community-based agencies and services. It is premised on a ‘bottom-up’ approach, which means enhancing the capacity of communities to determine goals and to pursue issues of importance to them, and to make decisions affecting their lives, for example, the direction of services and the allocation of funds. In Ghana, governments under the various regimes, the community members themselves, and NGOs have promoted the CD practice in several ways since independence in 1957. Preceding governments in Ghana through the Department of Community Development have played a central role in the exercise of CD work. Community development has not been thoroughly investigated in SCDA. This paper gives a clear understanding of CD in SCDA. This paper seeks to assess how the local communities take part in the siting, planning and implementation of development projects in their communities. Further it explores community development projects in the district and how projects are financed in the district. Finally, investigates the obstacles that impede the realization of community development process. This paper was carried out using a mixed method approach. Four area councils in SCDA were randomly selected for this work. These were taken from a total of 10 different local communities spread across the four area council. The study reveals that facilities in terms of education, health, potable water, roads rehabilitation, sanitation and rural electrification have improved tremendously (Fieldwork 2015). The study recommends that policies should be geared towards agriculture to improve the lives of the people in the district since the district is agrarian in nature.

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“…There are arguments that locate community development as one method of social work intervention and others that argue that it is a separate discipline (Kenny, 2011). In a survey of Australian social work programmes, Mendes (2009) found that community development sat at the margins despite being described as a core subject. In New Zealand there are six Bachelor of Social Work programmes offered in four universities and one polytechnic offering community development as part of their courses, these vary in level from second to fouth year courses.…”

Section: The Role Of Community Development Within Social Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Many argue that while there are inherent conflicts between community development and social work that separate them as disciplines, they are still linked by a shared interest in social justice (Mendes, 2009;Beddoe & Maidment, 2009). Such differences include a micro-focus versus a meso-or macro-focus, planned intervention versus collective action and the power relations that exist between the professional paid worker versus local (often volunteer) leadership.…”

Section: The Role Of Community Development Within Social Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There are numerous examples of community development projects that support the dominant discourse and are not inclusive of those on the margins of their communities. There are also examples of social work practice that is challenging and empowering (Mendes, 2009;Beddoe & Maidment, 2009). It is not without cause, therefore, that the definition of the terms 'community' and 'community development' have always been, and continue to be, hotly debated.…”

Section: Knowledge Intersectionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Incorporating community development into social work practice within the neoliberal environment

Aimers

Walker

2016

ANZSWJ

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Community development is a core subject in social work education, yet social work discourse often places community development at its margins (Mendes, 2009). This article considers the location of community development and community work within the current neoliberal environment in New Zealand and how such practice can be sustained by social workers in the community and voluntary sector. Community development is a way of working with communities that has a ‘bottom up’ approach as an alternative to State (top down) development. Over recent years, however, successive New Zealand governments have embraced neoliberal social policies that have marginalised community development. In addition the term ‘community work’ has been used to describe activities that have little to do with a bottom up approach thereby making it difficult to define both community development and community work. By applying a ‘knowledge intersections’ schema to two New Zealand community and voluntary organi- sations we identify where community development and social work intersect. From this basis we challenge social workers to consider ways in which community development can be embedded within their practice.

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Teaching community development to social work students: a critical reflection

Cited by 39 publications

References 22 publications

Measuring the Impact of a Community Extension Program in the Philippines

Measuring the Impact of a Community Extension Program in the Philippines

Understanding community development in Sekyere Central District, Ghana

Incorporating community development into social work practice within the neoliberal environment

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