Community development seeks to empower individuals and groups of people with the skills they need to effect change within their communities … that put people and places first

I had the opportunity to attend the 2.5 day Community Development course that was created by Ball State and sponsored by the Brown County Community Foundation. The information presented has the “potential” of resulting in a more effective and inclusive community where citizen input and participation is encouraged, respected, and valued.  Course description and materials below. At the conclusion of the course, several project ideas were identified and future meetings will be used to work through the process. I do plan on posting updates.

Instructors/Facilitators:

• Creative Insight Community Development
• Indiana Communities Institute – Ball State

Course Materials – Dropbox

• Action Planning Real Challenge, Real-Time
  1. Create Network; (2) Diversify; (3) Create a Safe Space; (4) Get S.M.A.R.T. Objectives; (5) Identify Goal Hierarchy – Simple-Complex, Nice-Essential); (6)Learn Your ABCs – Autonomy, Belonging, Competence; (7)Create a Space for Autonomy; (8)Celebrate Success; (9) Learn from Failure; (10) Repeat
• Community Engagement for Collective Action Toolbox
• Community Engagement 2010_Resource_Guide

Additional Resources and Supporting Efforts

• Brown County Leader Network – Support Materials
  • Model for  Improvement –  What are we trying to accomplish?  How will we know that a change is an improvement? What change can we make that will result in an improvement?
    • Plan change or test aimed at improvement
    • Do – Carry out the change – preferebly on small scale (prototype)
    • Study – Examine the results. What did we learn? What went wrong?
    • Act – Adopt the change, abandon it, run through the cycle again
• Brown County Schools – Engineering Design Process
  • 1.0 Ask. What are the problems? What are the conmstraints?
  • 2.0 Imagine. Brainstorm Ideas; Choose the best one.
  • 3.0 Plan. Draw a diagram; Gather needed materials
  • 4.0 Create. Follow- the plan; test it out
  • 5.0 Prove. Discuss what can work better, Repeat steps to make it better
• National Association of Community Development Extension Professionals