community work

Community Work

Power relations in community work. In this essay I firstly will be discussing how community work involves power relations, secondly look at different theories about power relations in community work and how these theoretical understanding of power can help me be analytic in my own practise, and finally give an example of two different frameworks for thinking about power relations and communities.

There are several concepts from various authors on the subject of community. The theoretical concept of community is not only a blurred notion but at the same time, it is used in different ways in different contexts. Community work can be seen as little as picking up a packet of crisp on the road to keep the road clean or as big as getting all the females in a community to stand up and fight for equal pay for women. Community work is defined by Taylor and Presley (1987) they say ‘Community Work is… dedicated to increasing the capacity of people in difficult and disadvantaged situations, getting more control over their collective circumstances. Community workers stimulate and support groups of people working to improve conditions and opportunities in their own neighbourhoods’.

The key purpose of community work is bringing the community together to bring about social change. It is about working together to meet the needs of the community by providing services and it is about supporting groups of people improve on conditions and opportunities in their neighbourhood. Community work is about empowering people to speak up for the area they are in and to take action to promote better life conditions.

Power can be viewed differently; Power can mean someone has more status than other people do, power can also mean that someone is physically stronger than someone else is. The power I want to look at is the social power. Power can be broadly defined in a sociological sense as "the capacity to bring about change." It can take many forms, it can come from many places, and it can be measured in many ways. In CPY work power can be seen as empowerment, to restore an individual’s sense of value and strength and to equip them to have control over their own lives. Power can also be viewed as ‘…the ability of individuals, or members of a group, to achieve aims or further interests they hold.’ (A.Giddens, 1989). (M.Webber. 1907) also goes on the say that ‘power is the probability that an individuals or a group will be able to carry out its will even against the resistance of others’.

The society we live in has its inequalities; the world we live in has its injustices. There is the powerful and the powerless, there is the rich and the poor, the free male, the suppressed female, the lower class and the higher class, there is people who suffer from racism, and there are people who fight an army with superior weapons with just stones. Power is something that can go from one person to another and change hands, the rich man can go poor and the poor can get rich.

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In local settings community work can involve the shift of power from one people to another, community work involves people who get together to create change, they create change by being equal to the rest and by gaining the sort of power that will make their lives better. Power in community work can refer to those that translate influence, that make a difference, and to those that have an effect. The actions of a CPY worker affect the thoughts or actions of the people they work with. Power relations could be characterised by descriptions as dominant - submissive, controlling - rebellious, having - wanting, and strong – weak etc. Therefore, within the field of power relations, what one person does affect another, which affects another, and so on. Community work has to have power relations involved in it otherwise; there would be no need for community work.

Community workers work with people to get their needs met for example a group of people who cannot get jobs due to lack of training they start to ask the local authority to help, the community workers helps them to set up meetings and to talk to the hierarchy to get some training in the local community centre. The local authority agrees and the job is done. The power relations in this scenario starts from the powerless people who need direction and support from the community worker who empowers them to set up a group and to ask for what they want from the people who have the power to meet their demands.

There are a number of community work theories that deal with power; the two I will look at is the pluralist and the radical/socialist work. The pluralist approach is a political view that power does not lie with just the government but it is distributed between a wide numbers of groups e.g. trade unions, interest groups, pressure groups and religious groups. Pluralism attaches these groups with claims that they hold power, control and that they can influence others. In community work, pluralist theories advocate a position that is actively encouraging and supporting participation to overcome the problems that are in their community and neighbourhoods.

Pluralist emphasise that power is not physical but power is something that people have in their resources, this could be from money to skills and knowledge, and that potential power comes from changing these resources into actual power. Batten (1967) a community worker who’s work was based on pluralist theories constructed an educational programme that aimed at people’s personal growth, he argued that by educating people it ‘is possible for them to change their attitudes and responses and which in turn would lead to an improvement in material conditions’ (K.Popple 1995).

One community work model example, which fits in with the pluralist way of thinking, is community education. Community education can be seen as part of community development as in one is trying to educate people to self-help and to develop the neighbourhood. The definition of community education can be described as ‘...a process designed to enrich the lives of individuals and groups by engaging with people living within a geographical area, or sharing a common interest, to develop voluntarily a range of learning, action and reflection opportunities, determined by their personal, social, economic and political needs. (CeVe 1990 pg 2)

Community education empowers people to learn to better themselves in the community. By educating people you are giving power to them, there is a saying that knowledge is power. I believe this saying as many famous people in the world hold power because of the skills and knowledge they have.

The second community work theory I want to look at is the radical/socialist approach. In the late 1960’s and early 1970 has witnessed the appearance of community work theories based upon radical and socialist thinking. Radical theories of society have made extensive changes in politics and social-economics. A radical has been described as someone ‘who proposes to attack some political or social problem by going deep into the socio-economic fabric to get at the fundamental or root cause and alter the basic social weakness’’ (Robertson 1985). (Fromm 1969) believes radicalism need not relate to a set of ideas but to an attitude or approach where everything is questioned or doubted. Radical and socialist theories focus on macro change rather than the pluralist micro change. Radicals like Saul Alinksy believe that in order for democracy you have to share power among the people. Without people having power then people are unhappy. Radical community workers like Saul Alinsky seek power for others by encouraging them to come together and organize to improve their living and working conditions. The methods used by radicals like Saul Alinksy can be seen as extreme by some people and outrageously smart by others e.g. He had garbage dumped on a government workers driveway to make the point that collections were inadequate in the slums and rats where freed in the city hall. Radicals believe in a way that you have to fight for power but in a non-violent way.

The approach of radicals like Saul Alinsky uses is the community action and community organization approach in community work. Community action is where someone from within a community takes the role of an activist in ones own community to try and help the community rise up and cause change. Power is demanded from the powerful in order for peace and tranquillity. Community organizing is when people are brought together for their common interest to create change in their communities. Organized community groups attempt to influence government and to be involved in decision making processes. Community organizing is usually focused on more than just resolving issues but it seeks to make the organizers feel that they are empowering all community members, often with the end goal of distributing power equally throughout the community. Empowerment is about helping people to gain control over their lives.
“empowerment is not characterised as achieving power to dominate others, but rather power to act with others to effect change’’. (Jane Stein 1997)

Looking at both the pluralist theories and radical ones, I can see similarities and differences. The over all objective of both is to empower people to create change however the methodology is different between the two. The pluralist deals with small-scale change (micro) and the radical deals with large scale change (macro), however depending on what work you are doing this notion is not true. A community worker can create big changes in developing the community and a community activist can just be rallying outside the local authority building asking for more rubbish bins. Pluralist approaches i.e. community education/development, the work is done by outsiders of the community rather than people of the community like community action/ where the work is done by people from the community to the community.

A community can have little communtities within that community, a good example of this is sparkhill. Sparkhill has many different people living their, if you look at the services that are provided for the community, the major service is the muath centre. This centre is set up by Yemeni community people for the people of sparkhill. Although the centre claims to cater for all the community it can be seen that some parts of the community do not use the services. This in turn shows that one community can benefit from the service and gain some power and the others who do not use the service will not.

Looking at my own practise as a CPY worker, I begin to understand what roles I take and can take in my work. As a youth worker my job is to help meet the needs of young people and to empower them. Pluralist ways of working like community education and community development I see as a individualist approach, I say this because the young people I work with each one has different needs and each wants something different. This is different to the radical approach because rather then concentrating on individuals you try to liberate a community. As a CPY worker I have to work to guidelines and principals, these are set by the organisation I work for. For this reason, radical tactics like Saul Alinskie's is out the question because I will end up without a job; however organizing a community can be part of my job. In previous work, I have organized groups of young people to attend meetings with council members and set up a steering group for local residents to deal with the issues in the area.

By understanding the different types of community work theories and community work models I realise that as a CPY worker I can be doing any of the community work models, whether it be educating, organizing or taking action. It just depends on the situation I am in. I feel the pluralist theories best fit my line of work as a youth worker as I try to empower young people to have control over their lives and to be involved in the community as citizens. P.Henderson citied R.Edwards states ‘the process of local involvement is crucial to community work. Community work sets out to develop the skills, knowledge and abilities of individuals and groups in a given community in order to increase the influence and power they can exert over their lives. Community work places emphasis on the poor, the powerless and those lacking in resources’. In CPY work power is important, we sometimes work with people who think they have no power and build them up to recognise that everyone has power in some sort of way. Young people have power to change their lives, they have power to come together as a group and demand from the council for a youth club. They have power to educate themselves and gain knowledge and skills.

My job as a CPY worker is trying and getting people to participate to create changes because without participation things cannot change. Twelvetrees, A (2002) affirms that people participate to bring the best for their community and the basis for making a change and self-interest. People are motivated which may be of personal interest, which dedicates their involvement. Participation is about encouraging that is through empowering and empowerment is a process of increasing influence and control. Empowering is about process and outcome it can be through groups, individuals or community and social levels. As a youth worker, I do not have power to control people’s lives but I have the power to make people think and realise what is happening around them and in their lives. According to (Keith popple 1995 pg 24) community workers are in a position in the middle of the hegemonic process, where they do not always agree with certain ideologies that the ruling class express, these practitioners are in a better position to inform the community by encouraging individuals and groups to articulate their opposing to oppressive power. Community workers have the training to help people explain clearly and make connections between their position and the need for change Power is something that everyone needs to have in some degree; it should be shared amongst everyone. By learning the different theories of community work and the methods that can be used has helped me to understand ways in which a CPY worker can carry out work. Whether the methodology is pluralist or radical, the end goal is the same. Empowerment.