Networking for community development Alison Gilchrist (February 2014)

Pre-amble Remembering Keib…  Contributor to research  Time, talents and talking  Fellow activist and member of SCCD/CDX  Wake-up call for work-life balance

Overview  Praxis – integrating experience, practice and theory  Processes – connecting, interacting, sharing  Practices – brokering, mediating, introducing, mending, facilitating, referring  Purposes – collective action, co-operation, social and network capital, managing complexity and diversity  Policy implications  Potential applications and opportunities

My learning journey  Practitioner and activist  Supporting community groups and local forums  Multi-agency approach - alliances, partnerships  Centre-based – opening up and reaching out  Networks – Bristol and national (SCCD/CDX)  Teaching and research

Praxis in action: research, reading, reflection, writing  Ph.D. ( ) – investigating networking rather than networks  Examined own experience and panel of community workers (inc. Keib’s input and encouragement)  Skills, strategies, traits and values  Practices and processes, but also CD principles – participation, equality, empowerment  Sharing and ‘churning’ through workshops, short articles – honed ideas -> WCC model

Definitions/understandings  Network – constellation of nodes, connected and communicating in variety of formal and informal ways  Networking – strategic and serendipitous creation and use of contacts, relationships and interactions  Community – ‘fuzzy’ set of people interacting on basis of shared interests, identities and /or locality  Development – positive change, capacity building for individual and collective benefit

Processes  Connecting  Interacting  Exchanging  Communicating/ learning  Cooperating  Sharing  Organising  Building relationships  Including/excluding

Practices  13 Ms – deliberate and skilled work setting up, using and maintaining links within communities, between communities and with relevant agencies and stakeholders  Meta-networking – hidden role of CD workers  Boundary-spanning – barriers, biases and divisions  Aptitudes and attitudes  People and politics  Principles and personality

Purposes  Community as a complex system  Flow of information and influence  Mobilising for collective action  Facilitating cooperation  Underpinning effective partnerships  Building and releasing social and network capital  Managing diversity

Policy - implications  Community empowerment and action  Co-design and co-production  Social value and additionality  Cohesion and integration  Health and well-being  Community resilience

Potential issues  Time  Trust  Technologies  Inequalities  Power relations  Respect  Relationships

Thank you!  Questions …..  Later a time for reflection and discussion  What does this approach mean for you?  What have you achieved through networking?  What difficulties have you encountered?  How can this model be further developed?