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Promoting Strengths, Prevention, Empowerment and
Community Change (SPEC) principles in community based
practice
Scot Evans Associate Professor, Department of Educational & Psychological
Studies Director, Undergraduate Program in Human and Social Development
[email protected] @evanssd
the human service organization becomes an
arena in which different moral values compete for dominance
Hasenfeld, 2010
3
community-based human service organizations
often lack frameworks to help guide their thinking and action (Delpeche et. al., 2003).
Praxis
S! P! E! C
Critical practice can be framed by four principles:!
Strengths-based - Acknowledging and appreciating individual and community strengths helps people thrive, but focusing on deficits diminishes their dignity.!
Prevention - Preventing ill health and social and psychological problems is better than curing people who already suffer.!
Empowerment - Well-being requires power, control, voice and choice.!
Community Change - We cannot eliminate problems one person at a time. We must change conditions that lead to problems in the first place.
Prilleltensky, I. (2005), Evans, Hanlin, & Prilleltensky, (2007)www.specway.org
Changing how we work
Deficits
Reactive
Alienating
Individuals
Strengths
Proactive
Empowering
Communities & Systems
strengthsSPEC's strength-based orientation identifies and builds
upon individual and community assets, resilience, and ability to thrive in difficult situations.
preventiona lesson from Alaska
We don’t prevent oil spills by scrubbing rocks!
As it turns out, the bridge leading
across the river upstream has a
hole through which people are
falling.
www.thinkupstream.net/
empowermentto increase the
power of individuals,
groups, and entire
communities
Muhammad Yunus - Grameen Bank
Over time, their skills needed to achieve autonomy have atrophied due to years of exclusion, marginalization
and neglect.
Evans, S.D. (2012). Community leadership. Global Journal of Community Psychology Practice, 3(3), 1-6.!Murphy, J. W. (2010). Leadership in community- based development. Unpublished manuscript, University of Miami, Miami, FL.
Communities have been conditioned to look to outsiders and experts for help.
Unfortunately, this belief can get propagated throughout communities so that residents become unable to see
their own assets and power.
This is exacerbated by the fact that in many current forms of community development, leadership is thought to best originate "from above" because a belief that local citizens
lack the necessary talents or ambition.
powerem ment
powercreating the conditions and opportunities for
community members to see their strengths, build capabilities, and experience power
community change
“No mass disorder, afflicting humankind,
has ever been eliminated, or brought
under control, by treating the affected
individual”!
“social service agencies should also engage in
social justice organizing or must be
accountable to social movements if they are to further, rather than impede, social justice.”
(Smith, 2007)
Action Research
People and organizations benefit from a reflective process
that creates the learning context through which members negotiate their different values, attitudes and perceptions.
Suárez-Herrera, Springett, & Kagan (2009).
SPEC Check Example:))Early)Educa/on)Pre3school)Program
“SPEC-iness”68%
62%
38%
17%
D
R
A
I
(N)
ReferencesDelpeche, H., Jabbar-Bey, R., Sherif, B., Taliafero, J., & Wilder, M. (2003). Community Development and Family Support: Forging a practical nexus to strengthen families and communities. Newark, DE: Center for Community Research and Services.!
Evans, S.D. (2012). Community leadership. Global Journal of Community Psychology Practice, 3(3), 1-6.!
Evans, S. D., Prilleltensky, O., McKenzie, A., Prilleltensky, I., & Nogueras, D, Huggins, C. & Mescia, N. (2011). Promoting Strengths, Prevention, Empowerment, and Community Change Through Organizational Development: Lessons for Research, Theory and Practice. Journal of Prevention and Intervention in the Community, 39(1), 50-64. !
Evans, S. D., Hanlin, C. E., & Prilleltensky, I. (2007). Blending ameliorative and transformative approaches in human service organizations: A case study. Journal of Community Psychology, 35(3), 329-346.!
Hasenfeld, Y. (2010). “The Attributes of Human Service Organizations”, Ch. 2, pp. 9-32 in Y. Hasenfeld (Ed.). Human Services As Complex Organizations. Sage Publications: Thousand Oaks California. !
Murphy, J. W. (2010). Leadership in community- based development. Unpublished manuscript, University of Miami, Miami, FL.!
Prilleltensky, I. (2005). Promoting well-being: Time for a paradigm shift in health and human services. Scandanavian Journal of Public Health, 1-8.!
Smith, A. (2007). Introduction: The Revolution will not be Funded. In INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex (pp. 1–18). Cambridge, MA: South End Press.!
Suárez-Herrera, J. C., Springett, J., & Kagan, C. (2009). Critical connections between participatory evaluation, organizational learning and intentional change in pluralistic organizations. Evaluation, 15 (3), 321 -342.!
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