Alan Blackshaw
I am a community builder working from an Assets Based Community Development (ABCD) perspective. I have spent my career working to serve and build community. I have experience as an educator, public servant, disability support worker, in local government and in community development both as a frontline worker and as a manager of a team of community development workers. With over 30 years experience in working with the community, the last 16 in local government, I have experience in building community from the grassroots up. I ams now continuing to serve the community by working to create strong communities and organisations. At the core of my practice are social justice principles.

State or Province:

Queensland

country:

AU

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Social Justice and Community Development

user image 2020-05-01
By: Alan Blackshaw
Posted in: Reflections and Ideas

Spend any time around community organisations, community services, educational facilities, health facilities and government agencies you will stumble across the term Social Justice Principles. But what exactly are they and how do they work with Community Development?

A google search for Social Justice Principles shows 350,000,000 entries around the term social justice principles. Additionally, there is a wealth of academic discussion around the terms but let’s try and put it into simple chunks of information to make the term user friendly.

At its most rudimentary level Social Justice is bound up in justice and rights, particularly human rights. It is about seeing where inequality lies, where discrimination is present, where there is disadvantage and seeking to change the situation so that these things are removed and people treated in a fair and just manner. This type of intervention is about social change. Making change to create a fairer society where inequality and injustice is eliminated. To put it on the most basic level Social Justice Principles are about fairness.

Central to community development practice are social justice principles. They represent core values in the work of creating social change through Community building and development. The focus of community development practice is to achieve social justice by working alongside communities or supporting the local community as the community takes the lead in making change.

So, exactly what are these principles?

Social Justice is concerned with ensuring all people are entitled to, and receive, fair and impartial treatment. These principles could include a number of items but most can be summarised as follows:

  • Equity: There should be fairness in the distribution of resources, particularly for those in need.
  • Equality:  All people should be treated equally with dignity, respect and free from any form of discrimination;
  • Access: The right of people to have reasonable and safe access to facilities, open space, programs, services, resources and information. This includes the right of independent and dignified access;
  • Participation:  All people should have the maximum opportunity to genuinely participate actively in civic and community life;
  • Inclusion: working in partnership with the community, all levels of government, key agencies and the private sector to build an inclusive, cohesive and strong community
  • Diversity: recognise and value the contribution of the community’s diverse population and respect the right of people to an inclusive community. Opportunities should be provided for positive participation to accommodate linguistic, cultural and religious diversity.

Without having social justice as a base there can be no real and lasting community building or community development.

This blog originally appeared at www.herdingtogether.com

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baydon
06/05/20 02:18:12PM @baydon:

Alan Blackshaw, I thought your ideas and prevention methods to reduce crime and build up communities where right on point, especially now where there is a lot of distrust between law enforcement and the people. You touch base on Asset Based Community Development, which is suppose to hone and leverage existing strengths within the community, but you helped me to understand that it can also serve as method of crime prevention or reduction. The different components that help reduce crime whether they are Crime Prevention Through Environmental design (CPTED) or Community Crime Prevention are both essential towards achieving crime reduction. For instance in the Southside of my city there is turmoil and they implement CPTED to the fullest extent, however, there is still crime and that’s because Community Crime Prevention is lacking. The theory of collective efficacy also plays a big role in involving and bringing together community members to reduce crime overall and create a safe environment.