Understanding Communities in Community Work - Term Paper Example

Introduction to Community Work Name Institution Lecturer Course Date Introduction to Community Work Abstract Community work, as the name suggests, is doing a job to or for the community. For one to find the underlying cause of community work, one has to know what sets it apart from the other types of work. Secondly, the understanding of a community comes in handy. What sets apart community work and the other types of work is that with the latter, it is a common practice that compensation is due to the person who performs it either in monetary terms or in kind. On the other hand, community work it is done for a noble course often giving back to the community and compensation is not a fundamental part thereof (Meenai, 2008). A community is a broad term used to refer to a unit comprising of members with common values. According to Peter Somerville’s book, Understanding Community (2011), he has defined a community as “a social, religious, professional unit that shares a lot of its values and has a connected objective” (Somerville, 2011, p. 16). Values run from a range of things such as tastes, preferences, risks, origin, geographical placements, education, economic development, health, government policies, housing structures, growth patterns, cohesion, socialties, religious beliefs and anything else that give a group of people something in common (Somerville, 2011). There are enormous types of communities since each value that is common amongst it sets it apart from another. As required in this report I will cover community work in three modules namely understanding communities, approaches to working with communities and skills in working with communities. The three modules will be discussed one by one later in this paper.Understanding communities basically means getting information about the different communities one is working with; it entails covering to a large extent the difference of community A from B (A and B have been used hypothetically). In short, it involves studying the values of the community one by one into details. Understanding communities is a crucial part of community work. Approaches to working with communities involve an understanding of how one should deal with the issues or the situation that arise when working with communities. Finally, skills in working with communities are the proficiency one should be armed with to work in a community; for example one could have studied community management so that what acquired over the study is a skill. A skill can be learnt, developed or practiced. Understanding Communities As earlier defined understanding communities is doing a study about communities and knowing everything about the unit in details so that one is in a position to work in them. When trying to understand communities one ought to create community description (Community Tool Box, 2014). A systematic approach of understanding a community will be an easy way out. Firstly, you collect all the information about the members of the unit. Such information is readily available from elected officials of that community since such people have a comprehensive history of their community (Somerville, 2011). Religious leaders is another group of people one can get information from especially the social aspect of it (Meenai, 2008). Other sources of information of a community include community activists, professionals, public records and archives (Meenai, 2008). It is mandatory to comb through all the available sources of information to make an up to standard description of a community whereby the description entails the whole scope of that community. We can divide the characteristics of communities being studied in to four branches, which include physical, social, demographics and geographical. Physical Branch For the physical division, it boils down to the most basic physical features one can observe in the community (Meenai, 2008). For example, the infrastructure, the types of buildings in that community, industrial facilities, and social amenities. To add onto these, one can study the reception of the area radio, television and means of communication. For example, I take a hypothetical community X. In community X, buildings there are up to date with the continuing changing trends of architecture, the social amenities like hospitals are well distributed in the community and well managed and industrial facilities are comfortably meeting the demand of that community. There is a smooth flow of information meaning communication network is good. From such an observation, one can create a description of community X and with the description, you can clearly understand that community and can work in and for it. Using the physical characteristics of a community, one can group it as a rural or urban community with regards to the state of the tangible things in that unit (Hardcastle, Powers and Wenocur, 2011). Often, communities in rural areas have a not so well developed infrastructures and other physical structures date way back unlike an urban community in today’s world. A good example of an urban community is X described above. Social Division This entails how the members of that community relate socially and the ties they create. One could study their history, religious beliefs and their living patterns so as to come up with the social characteristics of the people (Somerville, 2011). Economic activities in my study are encompassed in the social division too. How people carry out their business activities gives a picture of the state of the community; for example, members use physical money to pay for services as opposed to another community where members use plastic money, and this makes these communities different and one draws different conclusions from each of them. More often than not, social and physical come hand in hand and overlap too. Physical aspects often determine the social aspects (Hardcastle, Powers and Wenocur, 2011). Social Perspective From a social study of a community, one is able to understand the challenges and the limitation the members of the community are faced with since social scope is the most basic and evident face of a community. For example, it is from the social aspect of a community you get to know if the members are poor, rich or have just a manageable means of living (Meenai, 2008). Standards of living can be gauged using monetary terms and wealth terms (Hardcastle, Powers and Wenocur, 2011). That is, the amount of money the members have in, say banking institutions, wealth in terms of the resources the people have in the communities, for example, rich mineral deposits in the geographical location. Geographical Division The other division is geographical. This is simply the location of the community on the map, its topography and how it affects the community generally (Hardcastle, Powers and Wenocur, 2011). The community can be located either on the Northern, Southern, or central part of the country. Topography includes how hilly, sloppy, flat, swampy, the rivers, ponds, lakes and all the other natural features. These features determine how the people are distributed in the community, their income generating activities and generally their day-to-day activities. For example, if the topography of an area is hilly, the members of that community will use a certain means of transport as opposed to another say mountain bikes instead of walking. Again, if a community sits on a swampy place if they practice farming they will grow a certain type of crop that does well in a swampy area and so on. Such activities set one community apart from another. Demographics Division The last division is demographics. Demographics are solely about numbers and facts that can be found from past records say from census records of a community. In an English dictionary demographics are “the statistical data of a population especially showing changes in its characteristics.” The characteristics include number of people in that community, age, races, tribes (if any), levels of education and income too (Somerville, 2011). Having in hand such information about the people in the community helps you to decide the approach to take when taking up the community work (Meenai, 2008). Lastly with demographics, one is able to draw patterns of how the community was in the past, now and predict its trends in the near future using statistical formulas. For example, using past and present data on growth of the population of the community one can draw growth patterns and predict how the growth will be in the near future. Approaches to Working with Communities An approach is a way or means of how to deal with a situation and in our case in this report, the approach is on how to deal with working with communities. As seen in the sub title, understanding communities, it is evident that working with communities means having to deal with an enormous number of people and to top it all people with diverse characteristics and beliefs. For one to be in a position to work with such a community, you ought to have a plan and means of approaching the work otherwise it will end up being overwhelming and you too as a worker will lack the credibility desired from doing community work. There are many approaches one can embrace to work with communities among which include understanding the community that you are working with (this has been comprehensively covered above). Another approach is knowing early enough what outcome or results you want from working with the community (Somerville, 2011). For example, if the objective of working in a certain community is to make sure that the level of education rises from the present, this means there is a problem that ought to be solved in that community and that is raising levels of education. Having the problem in mind, it is utterly easy to have the approach. For instance in our case, the goal would be making sure the community understand the value of education. Having an open mind is the most obvious approach in any given scenario especially when working with a new group of people. This means you should not have pre-determined conclusions about the community before being physically there and observing it yourself. To add up to this, you ought to embrace the diversity that comes along with the members of the community (Meenai, 2008). Community participation is another approach that I learnt. This is being physically being a part of the community for a period of time so that you are in a position to get first hand information on their day to day activities. Participating in their activities that community members engage themselves in is a plus in the study of working with communities since it gives the real feel of the people (Somerville, 2011). Skills in Working with Communities In working with communities, one ought to have some skills to meet the demand of the work. Skills are the tools one is armed with for the work, and it does not necessarily mean physical tools even the technical knowledge of working. Skills are the proficiency you have to have. Skills are acquired through various ways such as through learning, training, practice and developing the skill as a response to the work at hand. There are enormous skills and the more the skills one has, the more efficient the work becomes. Necessary skills include inter-personal skills, critical thinking, communication skills and conflict resolution skills (Shulman, 2009). These are extremely crucial skills for working with communities. Interpersonal skills often overlap with communication skills since they both relate to how you get along with the people you are working with and for. When working with communities, you obviously have deal with members of that community one on one and make lots of contact; therefore, how to deal with the people is important. Kindness, care and effective communication are some of the skills one should practice (Hardina, 2012). For example, if the work in the community is women empowerment, it is a must that you communicate with the women so as to get to the bottom of everything and know from which angle the empowerment will proceed. From communication too, the community will be in a position to relate with you and even share information or facts that are not obvious from observation. Communication skills come in especially when trying to understand the communities since you need information. Enthusiasm to learn is key to communicating, keenness and showing interest to the person or the members sharing about their information. Masterly of candid respectable query language comes in handy too. This means you have to be very clear to avoid getting wrong information due to misunderstanding and putting off the respondent. Listening keenly and seeking clarification is also a form of respectable mode of communication. The same applies when participating in the communities’ activities since fitting in well will aid in working efficiently. Conflict resolution is also a skill important in working with communities (Gamble and Weil, 2010). Conflicts always arise since members of a community, though sharing common values and interests, may have different ideologies, which may conflict leading to conflict. While working with a community, you ought to have mastered how to manage a problem as soon as it arises and solving it to avoid the aggravation of the problem. Listening to the aggrieved parties and making them reach an agreement is the end product of conflict resolution. Conclusion Community work is a broad and as covered in this report in the three modules involves lots of interaction with each and every member of the community one is working in. Understanding communities clearly has to be done efficiently so that working with the community is not only interesting but helps one to achieve the main goal. The approaches and skills too have to be chosen carefully and well developed. All the three modules have to be carried out for maximum results of doing community work. References Becker, S & Bryman, A etal(2004), Understanding Research for Social Policy and Practice; Policy Press, Bristol. Community Tool Box (2014). Understanding and Describing Community. Retrieved from http://ctb.ku.edu/en/table-of-contents/assessment/assessing-community-needs-and-resources/describe-the-community/main Browning, A Halcli, A & Webster, F etal,(2002) Understanding Contemporary Society. Gamble, D. N. Weil, M. (2010). Community Practice Skills: Local to Global Perspectives. West Sussex: Columbia University Press. Hardcastle, D. A., Powers, P. R. & Wenocur, S. (2011). Community Practice: Theories and Skills for Social Workers (3rd Ed.). New York, NY: Oxford University Press, Inc. Hardina, D. (2012). Interpersonal Social Work Skills for Community Practice. Springer Publishing Company. Meenai, Z. (2008). Participatory Community Work. New Delhi, India: Concept Publishing Company. Shulman, L. (2009). The Skills of Helping Individuals, Families, Groups, and Communities. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole Cengage Learning. Somerville, P. (2011). Understanding Communities: Politics, Policy and Practice. Bristol, UK: The Policy Press. Taylor, M. (2003). Public Policy in the Community. London: Palgrave. Read More