Community Work as Opposition

Journal of comparative social work, 2020

A number of tensions pertaining to social problems and human suffering become apparent when analysing community work. As a source for critical reflection, we discern some of these challenges, but also potentials. Three community work social enterprises serve to exemplify the objectives of addressing social problems by fostering participation and empowerment. To enhance and include the voice of service users, the programmes attempt to cultivate human resources as opposed to perceived formalism and a subsequent diminishment of the potentials of community inclusion. The formalistic governmental agendas are perceived to be unable to appreciate the diversity of service users’ individual needs and social challenges, which produces conflicting prospects. Such a dichotomy between formalistic welfare practices and the ideals represented in the three enterprises offers a podium for users, professionals, policymakers and researchers to consider alternative expressions of community work, and how these can address social problems. We maintain that rapidly changing welfare models require an increased sensitivity to human suffering as a position embedded in the habitus and sociological imagination of community work. It is a source for reflection on the role of welfare arenas perceived as spaces in which service users ideally, based on their own social situation, can improve their social circumstances. It is an invitation to reflect on the potentials of community work in a diversity of cultures and practices.

This article looks at the transformation of Finnish community work in the Nordic context. The two-phase analysis of an intensive case study first presents a summary of the interpretation of interview descriptions by Finn-ish practical community workers, and the observations are then reflected on by myself and Swedish academic experts against the current situation and development trends in community work in Sweden. The paradigm change in community work has an impact on the organisation, expertise, goals and discourse on the work. In Finland, community work has all but vanished from the structure of municipal social work; in Sweden its position is stronger, but the trends of change are also visible there. The article concludes with an examination of the changes in community work in the contexts of both professional practices in social work and societal policy.

Journal of Comparative Social Work

Community-oriented approaches in social work are highlighted in both social work literature and policy documents in post-financial crisis Europe, and in the Nordic welfare states where professionalized bureaucracy, universal benefits and institutionalized social work have been the norm. The aim of this article is to explore social workers’ experiences of role changes in the transition to a more community-oriented approach, characterized by ambulatory work, the facilitation of local resources, multi-disciplinary collaboration and user participation. The empirical data consists of qualitative data from two cases: a political reform in the Netherlands (The Social Support Act), and a user-initialized project in Norway. Ten social workers from nine different organizations were interviewed in the Netherlands, and four social workers from one community-based project in Norway. We analysed these as a multiple case study of a transformation towards community-based practice, but one in which ...

2008

This article looks at the transformation of Finnish community work in the Nordic context. The two-phase analysis of an intensive case study first presents a summary of the interpretation of interview descriptions by Finnish practical community workers, and the observations are then reflected on by myself and Swedish academic experts against the current situation and development trends in community work in Sweden. The paradigm change in community work has an impact on the organisation, expertise, goals and discourse on the work. In Finland, community work has all but vanished from the structure of municipal social work; in Sweden its position is stronger, but the trends of change are also visible there. The article concludes with an examination of the changes in community work in the contexts of both professional practices in social work and societal policy. Irene Roivainen

-a category of disadvantaged people -unorganized groupment of people, they need a help -a community of interests -organised interest association, that express its interests and work on them -a service community -organised connection inhabitants of community, that are able afford a help with a network of professional organizations -a municipality -that is mean as social space, in which are built relations between providers of services and disadvantaged, who are able establis their interests and support their realisations by an activity/action Social work (Popple, 1995; Barker, 1987; Hartl, 1993 Hartl, , 1997 consider as community rather groupment of people, who have common characteristics, no expect with existing sens of community, fellings of solidarity etc. Objectives of community work are to mobilise this facts.

ILO Working Paper 149, 2013

In the context of a global jobs crisis, there is renewed interest in the role of public employment in providing work opportunities even where markets are unable to do so. This context has also seen a range of forms of innovation in public employment, with new forms of work and new approaches to implementation delivering different kinds of outcomes. The Community Work Programme in South Africa is an example of such innovation. The CWP was designed to use public employment as an instrument of community development, and uses participatory local processes to identify work that needs to be done to improve the quality of life in poor communities. This has resulted in a multi-sectoral work menu with a strong emphasis on care, food security, community safety and a range of other work activities. The inclusion of work in the social sector within a public employment programme creates new ways of strengthening social outcomes. The CWP also differs from other public employment programmes with its focus on providing ongoing access to part-time work for those who need it at local level, providing an income floor in ways that draw from lessons of social protection. This design feature is a specific response to the structural nature of unemployment in South Africa, which means that for many participants, there is no easy exit from public employment into other economic opportunities; instead, the CWP supplements as well as strengthening their other livelihood strategies. The Community Work Programme was an outcome of a strategy process commissioned by the South African Presidency in 2007 that aimed to strengthen economic development strategies targeted at the poor. This process recognized that in a context of deep structural inequality and unemployment, strategies were needed that could enable economic participation even where markets are unable to do so. This formed part of the rationale for scaling up South Africa’s existing commitments to public employment, with the CWP also designed to use public employment as an instrument of community development. The CWP is still a relatively new programme, institutionalized in the Department of Co-operative Governance in South African since April 2010. This article examines the policy rationale for the CWP, describes its key design features and explores the forms of local innovation to which it is giving rise, in relation to the forms of work undertaken and the associated community development outcomes. It also explores some of the challenges of implementation and the policy questions to which this innovation in public employment is giving rise.

Community Work, 2019

Community work for urban transformation is something that have very different perspectives according to the discipline that study it. From perspectives of the theories and the practices it is possible to describe different parts that allow us to a better understand of this practice in urban transformation. The following articles are trying to do that explaining 4 complementary understanding of community work, giving a general but useful description and framework of this field. Starting from the analysis of the theory it will ends in supposing something that for us is needed in today's communities and urban transformation. This work has been developed during my Erasmus in the autumn semester at Malmö Universitet in the course of "Community Work in Urban Transformation" and successively improved and enriched by my self in order to create some basis that can be helpful in community work studies. The work has been divided in 4 part: community work as a planning tool; community work in practice; acting in community work; a model for community work.

International Journal of Contemporary Management, 2018

Background. In local communities in Poland, introduction of innovative social work solutions which are directed towards solving particular problem cases and move beyond the current standard of social work in welfare centres, is a complex process fraught with many obstacles. It is only rarely a part of social issues management in local communities. This paper is concerned with qualitative research focused on the factors contributing to the effectiveness of initiatives utilizing the OLC (Organizing Local Community, Organizowanie Społeczności Lokalnej) method, which commenced in 2010-2014, under point 5.4 of the systemic project Human Capital Operational Program (Program Operacyjny Kapitał Ludzki) named "Creating and developing the standards of social help and integration-Standards in help" (Tworzenie i rozwijanie standardów pomocy i integracji społecznej-Standardy w pomocy). Research aims. The aim of this paper is to identify and determine factors that influence, whether positively or negatively, the spread and establishment of innovative methods of working with communities experiencing social problems in social welfare centres. It focuses on factors associated both with internal social welfare centre management, with social issues management, and with the bodies created to solve them within a given local community. Methodology. The research was conducted using the case study method in three localities and was supposed to appraise the subsequent fates of three social welfare centres in which new activities have been initiated under the systemic project, as well as the fates of social workers employed in them for organising local communities. Key findings. Thanks to the research conducted and data gathered, we managed to highlight a number of contexts and circumstances which exert heavy influence over the functioning of social welfare centres as well as over the effectiveness of methods of working with communities experiencing social issues. Such contexts have both internal (e.g. the attitude of a centre's employees towards a given issue and

Public Management Review, 2009

SHS web of conferences, 2012

Municipal social policy has an important role in dealing with social problems of citizens. On micro level, municipalities spend a substantial amount of their budget solving such problems. However, increasing the amount of money spent on solving problems of each individual at micro level does not provide efficient fulfilment of the tasks defined for municipal social policy making. Thus new, complementary solutions should be looked into, as new ways of development of social work in municipalities should be designed with the aim to increase the level of citizen participation and joint responsibility, especially of socially vulnerable groups. Research results let the author conclude that social activity of socially vulnerable groups should be promoted by creating a series of prerequisites, among which citizen participation, need for organisational support, activities that would foster politician and municipality officials' attitude towards citizen participation and their social capital increase, two-way relationship between citizens and officials, and the worker that would promote citizen participation, among which is social policy making, are considered to be very important. All of this can be successfully reached by developing community work in local municipalities. This is the missing link to combine macro and micro levels, or political determination and practical implementation of citizen participation.