Mending broken communities…easy as ABCD?
The Connecting Communities (C2) Programme
Hazel Stuteley
It’s a particular joy for me and the Health Complexity Group (HCG) to be launching C2 at this year’s ‘Sense of Place’ conference at Eden with its focus on community regeneration. We are very proud of our long association and working relationship with Jane and her team at the Sensory Trust. They and their Eden Project partners have been both pivotal and immensely supportive in the development of C2.
C2 is an experiential, evidence based learning programme, usually delivered as a series of workshops and site visits over three days, based on ‘what works’ to bring about transformational change within disadvantaged communities.
Background
As a nurse for nearly 40 years my mission has always been to heal.
In the decade leading up to the Millennium I discovered that it was possible to ‘heal ’an entire community of 6,000 people. The Beacon Project Falmouth, once known as a ‘sink estate’ is now a nationally recognised ‘flagship’ for regeneration. Self governed by a community-led, multi-agency partnership, the dramatic health and social outcomes of 1999, have not just been sustained but improved upon.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in West Cornwall, heavy Government investment via the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund and European funding did not seem to be having the hoped-for impact on other equally challenged communities.
Why did the Beacon Project work so well? Why did its methodologies appear so different from the many community development models and toolkits already ‘out there’? Was there a transferable ‘Beacon’ model? To quote one of the residents ‘We didn’t have any magic dust… anyone can do what we did!’
We at HCG believed that too, and six years of research, development and piloting of C2 is beginning to reveal a strong correlation between our work and that of Asset Based Community Development (ABCD).
Asset Based Community Development
ABCD was first brought to my attention through papers forwarded by Tony Kendle from the Eden Project. The International Association for Community Development Report 2006 stated that although ‘well developed internationally, there has been little explicit application (of ABCD) in Community Development policy and practice across the UK.’
ABCD focuses and builds on the strengths and aspirations of communities rather than their deficits, in contrast with the traditional UK ‘needs-led’ approach, which tends to use a deficit, capacity building model.
Beacon and C2 have mirrored the ABCD approach and pilots have demonstrated the potential of shifting the learning emphasis away from community capacity building to that of capacity release and to the all important co-creation of enabling conditions which build on existing social assets and strengths. To positively influence core attitudes and beliefs of those promoting change, via narrative and story telling from residents and agencies who have undergone transformation, has also proved effective.
Time to rethink Community Development Policy and practice?
I think so. Lets not kid ourselves, the ‘hole in our social ozone layer’ is getting bigger, the health inequalities gap is widening. Many broken communities still urgently need mending despite all the millions being pumped into regeneration nationally. Maybe, just maybe, an answer lies in ABCD. Seeing the ‘glass half full’, and seeing rich abundance where others see scarcity within our challenged communities. It’s there, I promise, and is a powerful force of energy and change… C2 can help you find it!
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