The Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) identifies community development as a practice “aimed at rebuilding communities that have become dysfunctional.” 1 While this can be the case, at CCSA we prefer to focus on the strengths of a community rather than its disfunction.
Instead, CCSA proposes the use of the Scottish Community Development Centre’s definition:
At its heart community development is rooted in the belief that all people should have access to health, wellbeing, wealth, justice and opportunity.
Key principles of community development in Australia are very similar to those used by the EuCDN and IACD. They include:
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In the following video Kylie Fergusen, Former CEO of Community Centres SA, proposes that community development is more than a set of principles – it is about possessing a “moral compass.”
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Community development is less concerned with what is being done and more concerned about how it is done and why the practitioners are involved. What the practitioner is doing must be informed by community development principles (their moral compass).
Consider the principles of community development:
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Due to the variety of people that can be involved and the different issues being addressed, community development work is diverse!
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No matter what you are doing in the community, if you are satisfying community development principles, you are doing community development work! Later we will look closer at how community engagement and community development can get confused. But first, click on the Next Topic button below to get An Indigenous Perspective of community development.
