Building and Measuring Community Empowerment Glenn Laverack

Empowerment principles Identify your own power base - you cannot help others to empower themselves without first understanding your own power base. Facilitate others to identify their own power base and then mapping and prioritising their concerns. Enable others to build their capacity to find the solutions to their prioritised concerns.

Practitioner roles The practitioner is directive, instructing communities what they should do. The practitioner plays a facilitating role, asking and assisting communities to do what they want towards self-directed goals. The practitioner plays a role to explicitly bring about social and political change, in favour of the community.

A personal power or an inner sense of self-discipline and self-esteem. Power-from-within A personal power or an inner sense of self-discipline and self-esteem. Labonte, 1996 Personal empowerment Increased feelings of value and a sense of individual control, a proactive and a critical approach to life (Zimmerman, 1995) that may be triggered by an incident or experience in life.

At some stage individuals will want to address the broader, underlying causes of their powerlessness and will want to become more engaged collectively often through politically orientated activities. Passive action empowerment TRANSFORMATION

The evidence for communities Social ties and networks are a powerful determinant of health. Community-centred approaches work. Provide skills, knowledge and experience. Bridging and connecting to others. Build capacity and helps with local program delivery. (South, 2013) Pictures from Wakefield Groundwork

Community empowerment Community empowerment is ‘a process by which disadvantaged people work together to increase control over events that influence their lives’ (David Werner, 1988).

The Continuum of Collective Empowerment 1 2 3 4 5 <-- ---------- ------------- ------- ------- ----> Action for Social & Political Change Personal action Small groups Community organisations Partnerships 8

The `Capable Community` A community has both social and geographic dimensions, in which individuals and groups interact, take action towards achieving shared goals (a community of interest). The existence of functional leadership, established community structures, participation and the ability to mobilize resources are indicative of strong organizational and social abilities that capture the essential qualities of a ‘capable community`.

Community participation. Problem assessment capacities. Local leadership. Resource mobilisation. Organisational structures. Links to other organisations and people. Ability to ‘ask why’ (critical consciousness). Community control over programme management. Equitable relationship with outside agents. (Laverack, 2009). 10

Building and Measuring Community empowerment

The process A participatory self-evaluation Assessment of each domain Develop a strategic plan for improvement Visually represent the assessment Interpret the visual representation

The Methodology Participatory approach Preparation (the development of a working definition & pre-testing the domains). Assessment of each capacity domain. Strategic planning for each domain. The follow-up (re-assessment and comparison of progress).

The matrix

Coen Health Action Team, Australia

The Coen HAT

The Assessment of each Domain Five ranked qualitative statements (eg. 0 to 4). Least to most capacity building. Separate sheet and not numbered. Participants collectively select or adapt one statement.

Coen and Local Leadership

The Matrix

Strategic Planning How to broadly improve the present situation. A detailed strategic plan (who is responsible, what, how, when - within a specific timeframe). The resources required to implement the strategic plan.

Develop local leadership The Matrix Domain Assessment and rank Reasons why How to Improve Strategy Resources Develop local leadership Functioning well under leadership. Do not have the support of leaders outside the Health Action Team. (2) Do not have the support by local school, police and community services. Promoting HAT; Showcasing what HAT does in community; Visiting School/Police; Explaining HAT roles; Build new partnerships. WHAT: HAT to approach local orgs: school, police, council etc WHO: HAT to organize school / police visits; Chair to organize time, dates, venues WHEN: By September 2007 WHERE: Community PURPOSE: To raise awareness of HATs HAT to distribute flyers and arrange a broader public meeting WHO: Chair to delegate - identify (3) HAT members to organize articles, talking on radio etc. Commitment; Time; Present an outline / flyer / agenda what are the Roles & responsibilities of HAT Newsletter: Time Article Person Access to computers / stationary Meeting Venue, Date to be set by HAT Delegate to talk. Scribe (Qs & Ans)

Visual representation Numerical value from each selected statement placed into a spider-graph. Graph provides visual representation. Comparison between domains. Comparison overtime. Comparison between communities.

Which ‘communities’ should be supported to build their empowerment? Who is responsible for building community empowerment? Who is responsible for strengthening the capacity of CSOs? 3. Will building community empowerment lead to an improvement in health outcomes? 4. Will building community empowerment lead to an improvement in access to health care and to health service delivery?

Grazie mille