Strategies of Community Organization

Community Organization, up until recently, has been called " A theory in search of practice." I've taken an interest in the practice for some time, and between my Experience, Research, and Education as part of Baltimore Corps' 1st cohort of community health workers, I have strived to inspire critical conversations and advance towards tested theory.

A strong starting point for understanding community organization is to look at the 3 models of community organization practice. To keep it in context, we are looking at macro Intervention. This means aiming above the individual to affect groups, families, organizations, communities, and even regions or nations.

Community Work is a broad area. Expanding beyond clinical settings to sustain human betterment, improve policy, deliver services, and strengthen community life while minimizing negative outcomes. Macro practice includes community organization, Social Policy, and administration. These serve as perspectives to view macro practice, and they mix and phase.

Within these broad perspectives or strategy directions, you can also find specific, detailed, coherently patterned Models. There are many ways to approach the subject of community organization, and this variety makes it difficult for both students and teachers. Rather than a one-size-fits-all solution. It is more effective to split the community organization into three models.

The first model we will consider is locality development. The model we will consider is locality development. This model suggests that active participation at the local community level in goal determination and action leads to community development. Community Development can be defined as economic and social progress for the whole community, with heavy reliance on the community's initiatives. Examples include neighborhood work programs, volunteer orgs, and the Americorps community health pathways program.

The second model is social planning. This style focuses on a technical approach to problem-solving in regard to substantive social problems, such as housing or mental health. The assumption in this model is that change in complex environments and systems requires expert planners. The design and implementation of social plans in effective and cost-efficient ways is a core focus. Social planning is largely about establishing, arranging, and delivering goods and services to people who need them.

The third and final model we will look at is the social action approach. This model applies when there is a disadvantage or underserved segment of the population that needs to be organized, sometimes with/ others, to make demands on the larger community for proper resources or treatment. Social action often seeks redistribution of power, resources, or decision-making in the community. Examples include labor unions, feminist groups, and organizations such as Black Lives Matter.

Again, in the real world, these are not mutually exclusive. With them defined, we can move on to analysing how they function as characteristics, roles, goals, and more!