Search Results

The Two Roots of Head Start

Edward Zigler and Sally J. Styfco

in The Hidden History of Head Start

This chapter focuses on the planning of the Head Start program. To the planners, the purpose of Head Start was optimal child development, resulting in improved school readiness. The Community Action ... More

This chapter focuses on the planning of the Head Start program. To the planners, the purpose of Head Start was optimal child development, resulting in improved school readiness. The Community Action people viewed better performance by a Head Start child not as an end in itself but as a means to a much larger end. It was an opportunity to hire parents and locals to improve their financial situation. More important, Head Start would confront and change the system so that all poor children and adults would experience a better quality of life.Less

Re-gilding the ghetto: community work and community development in 21st-century Britain

Sarah Banks

in Radical social work today: Social work at the crossroads

This chapter examines the nature of ‘community work’ and regards ‘community development’ as one of several approaches to community work. It considers Marjorie Mayo's conclusion that community ... More

This chapter examines the nature of ‘community work’ and regards ‘community development’ as one of several approaches to community work. It considers Marjorie Mayo's conclusion that community development as an intervention has limited radical potential, and argues that this conclusion is equally valid thirty-five years later, as the more radical ‘community action’ approaches to community work have been marginalised and community development has become mainstreamed within policies and practices concerned with promoting citizen participation and neighbourhood renewal. The chapter also offers examples of locally based action for political change (based on community organising and critical pedagogy), which keep alive the radical community-work tradition. The focus is on community work as an occupation and set of practices in Britain, where it has developed separately from social work.Less

Connecting at the edges for collective change

Alison Gilchrist

in Tomorrow's Communities: Lessons for Community-based Transformation in the Age of Global Crises

This chapter explores how the use of a complexity-informed approach to the development and evaluation of community action can improve joint working. It reviews the adoption of this approach by public ... More

This chapter explores how the use of a complexity-informed approach to the development and evaluation of community action can improve joint working. It reviews the adoption of this approach by public agencies and funders such as the Lankelly Chase Foundation in the UK and the FSG in the USA and explains the importance of the emphasis they place on trust-based partnerships and evaluations that are open, flexible and oriented towards collective learning. It goes on to consider a community project grant-aided by the National Lottery Community Fund which uses a complexity-informed approach to strengthen the connections within and between communities and promote neighbourhood evaluation that endeavours to identify optimal levels of interaction and inclusion that allow ‘order’ to emerge from ‘chaos’ through the co-production of sustainable outcomes.Less

State and Local Public Health Surveillance in the United States

Guthrie S. Birkhead and Christopher M. Maylahn

in Principles & Practice of Public Health Surveillance

This chapter describes the application of specific principles to the practice of public health surveillance at the state and local level. It describes the development and current status of state and ... More

This chapter describes the application of specific principles to the practice of public health surveillance at the state and local level. It describes the development and current status of state and local jurisdiction over the conduct of public health in the United States, the importance of the link between surveillance and community action, the role of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE), and new developments in surveillance strategies. The chapter concludes with a description of the challenges faced by public health surveillance practitioners in carrying out this core public health function.Less

Neighbourhoods, communities and the local scale

Quintin Bradley

in Localism and Neighbourhood Planning: Power to the People?

This chapter looks at international debates on participation and the widening of democratic engagement in the context of initiatives in the English planning system. It discusses the devolution of ... More

This chapter looks at international debates on participation and the widening of democratic engagement in the context of initiatives in the English planning system. It discusses the devolution of neighbourhood planning powers to local communities from 2011 and draws parallels with traditions of citizens' control and direct action in land-use planning. The chapter also asks whether neighbourhood planning can be said to devolve some kind of ‘power to the people’. In doing so, it argues for an understanding of participation not as a process of inclusion, but as a political practice founded on the inevitability of antagonism and conflict. The chapter begins by exploring the theory and practice of participation in planning and its relation to community action. It then introduces neighbourhood planning within the context of community opposition to development and considers the emergence at the local scale of new collective identities structured around participation as a democratic political practice.Less

The many lives of neighbourhood planning in the US: much ado about something?

Larry Bennett

in Localism and Neighbourhood Planning: Power to the People?

This chapter begins by tracing the evolution of neighbourhood planning techniques in the United States. It highlights the importance of the federal system of government in generating a multitude of ... More

This chapter begins by tracing the evolution of neighbourhood planning techniques in the United States. It highlights the importance of the federal system of government in generating a multitude of structural approaches to neighbourhood planning. In the early post-Second World War era, national initiatives such as Urban Renewal and the Community Action Program mandated neighbourhood consultation in the shaping and implementation of policy. Although the effectiveness of these consultative measures was the subject of much debate, they did seed many subsequent efforts to link planning and citizen participation. The latter part of this 20th-century policy tour touches on initiatives that have been mounted either by municipal governments or through the efforts of locally based activist movements. The chapter then looks at three contemporary variants of neighbourhood planning: what might be characterised as ‘classic’ neighbourhood planning by Portland, Oregon's neighbourhood council and New York City's community board systems; Chicago's community policing initiative; and the fashioning of community benefits agreements (CBAs) in several Californian cities. It also reconsiders the most expansive inflection of the expansive view of neighbourhood planning: that neighbourhood planning can serve as a platform for achieving substantial social transformation.Less

Evaluating the War on Poverty: The Conservatism Of Liberalism

Frank Stricker

in Why America Lost the War on Poverty—and How to Win it

This chapter evaluates the programs that were commonly associated with President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty, especially those that were implemented by R. Sargent Shriver's Office of Economic ... More

This chapter evaluates the programs that were commonly associated with President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty, especially those that were implemented by R. Sargent Shriver's Office of Economic Opportunity. In particular, it considers job-training programs, paying particular attention to the Manpower Development and Training Act and the Job Corps, along with Head Start, Neighborhood Legal Services, and community action programs. The chapter then outlines some of what planners and politicians did to address poverty during the 1960s, and analyzes which among the War on Poverty, economic growth, and cash transfers cured poverty in 1965–1970. It concludes by discussing the impact of Johnson's liberalism on his antipoverty crusade.Less

The Fight to Preserve Local Control

Karen M. Hawkins

in Everybody's Problem: The War on Poverty in Eastern North Carolina

This chapter discusses the Office of Economic Opportunity’s shift away from local ideas. This primarily entailed OEO funding fewer projects originating from local people and instead pushing national ... More

This chapter discusses the Office of Economic Opportunity’s shift away from local ideas. This primarily entailed OEO funding fewer projects originating from local people and instead pushing national emphasis programs, such as Head Start, designed by federal officials. Although congressional cuts to OEO’s budget in 1967 played a role, the federal campaign to standardize the types of programs within the nation’s Community Action Agencies was perhaps more in response to other factors. For one, there was growing congressional disapproval for the controversial (and sometimes violent) direction of some local community action groups. Additionally, there was a continuing belief within OEO that national-emphasis programs would be more effective in reaching those most in need than were programs conceived by local people, most of whom were not poor themselves.Less

Community and Research Together

Claire Townsend Ing, Rebecca Delafield, and Shelley Soong

Winona K. Mesiona Lee and Mele A. Look (eds)

in Ho'i Hou Ka Mauli Ola: Pathways to Native Hawaiian Health

Hawaiians have faced historical and cultural traumas leading to modern day inequities in the social, economic and political realms. These inequities contribute to poor health status that many Native ... More

Hawaiians have faced historical and cultural traumas leading to modern day inequities in the social, economic and political realms. These inequities contribute to poor health status that many Native Hawaiians experience. Two groups have attempted to improve these health outcomes, Academic researchers and the Native Hawaiian community. However, often times the approaches and goals of these two groups are at odds. Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) is an approach that seeks to combine community goals, action, and priorities with those of academic research. This chapter illustrates the evolution of CBPR in Hawai‘i, and its meaningful principles that have been effective for both the Native Hawaiian and research communities in their promotion of health.Less

Community as policy: reflections on community engagement, empowerment and social action in a changing policy context

Angus McCabe (ed.)

in Community Groups in Context: Local Activities and Actions

This chapter explores the debates about 'below the radar' (BTR) community groups and their assumed role in delivering a range of policy agendas from democratic renewal through to community cohesion ... More

This chapter explores the debates about 'below the radar' (BTR) community groups and their assumed role in delivering a range of policy agendas from democratic renewal through to community cohesion and public service delivery. It argues that the motivators for community action are, and have been, ill understood in policy circles. Further, there is and has been little systematic analysis of the power relationship between the state (both locally and nationally) communities and neighbourhoods which can inform meaningful debate on devolution and localism. The chapter critically examines the implications of changing policy environments for small community groups and asks can such activity, which has often been independent of, and operated outside the state, be co-opted to deliver particular government policy objectives?Less

Conclusion: Community Action and the Hollow Prize

Mark Krasovic

in The Newark Frontier: Community Action in the Great Society

The book’s conclusion considers the legacy of 1960s community action in the decades after the election of the city’s first black mayor in 1970, a period in which the city was regarded as a largely ... More

The book’s conclusion considers the legacy of 1960s community action in the decades after the election of the city’s first black mayor in 1970, a period in which the city was regarded as a largely hollow prize. Numerous municipal officials during this period – including two mayors – had gained a political education via the city’s antipoverty program. But they faced greatly diminished federal investments that came increasingly in the form of block grants that were uninterested in significant community participation. The conclusion follows the depletion and reorganization of the Community Action Program and the broader ethic that had guided it, yet finds their most significant legacy in the various community-based organizations that continue to anchor particular neighborhoods and value the knowledge and desires of their residents.Less

Introduction: Maximum Feasible Participation

Stephen Schryer

in Maximum Feasible Participation: American Literature and the War on Poverty

Focusing on the African American poet and playwright Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), the Introduction explores links between 1950s and 1960s process literature and the Community Action Program. Baraka’s ... More

Focusing on the African American poet and playwright Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones), the Introduction explores links between 1950s and 1960s process literature and the Community Action Program. Baraka’s Black Arts Repertory Theatre and School (BARTS) was funded through the War on Poverty, and his version of process art fulfilled the participatory requirements of the Community Action Program. Both Baraka and many welfare activists allied with the Community Action Program also drew on a binary conception of class culture popularized by the post–World War II counterculture and liberal social science. This binary conception produced two figures that alternately incited and frustrated literary and social work efforts to bridge the gap between the middle class and the poor: the juvenile delinquent and the welfare mother.Less

Introduction

Liz Richardson

in DIY Community Action: Neighbourhood problems and community self-help

This introductory chapter looks at the activities people in low-income neighbourhoods are doing in order to improve the places where they live. It first discusses DIY community action, which is used ... More

This introductory chapter looks at the activities people in low-income neighbourhoods are doing in order to improve the places where they live. It first discusses DIY community action, which is used interchangeably with ‘community self-help activity’. The chapter then studies the importance of neighbourhood conditions and the concepts of social capital and community engagement. It ends with a study of the structure of the book and the findings of the study.Less

Community action: so what?

Liz Richardson

in DIY Community Action: Neighbourhood problems and community self-help

This chapter aims to show how the work of the groups contributes to dealing with social exclusion and neighbourhood decline. It examines how one understands the value the groups' work has, what the ... More

This chapter aims to show how the work of the groups contributes to dealing with social exclusion and neighbourhood decline. It examines how one understands the value the groups' work has, what the groups actually do in practice, and whether one can create more social capital and citizenship using community self-help activity. The chapter determines that initially, the things the groups do seem like worthy activities, but that this perception drops compared to the scale of problems.Less

The Construction of Community Action in the Great Society

Mark Krasovic

in The Newark Frontier: Community Action in the Great Society

This chapter provides a history of the development of the Community Action Program within the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. It complements those histories that have focused on the role of ... More

This chapter provides a history of the development of the Community Action Program within the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. It complements those histories that have focused on the role of social scientists and academic theory in the development of the program by providing accounts of key program architects’ encounters with marginalized Americans, including Native Americans and urban gang members. Out of such encounters grew a critique of the federal bureaucracy that, in turn, produced community action.Less

Between Inclusion and Exclusion: The Origins of the U.S. Community Action Program

Kazuyo Tsuchiya

in Reinventing Citizenship: Black Los Angeles, Korean Kawasaki, and Community Participation

This chapter discusses the Community Action Program (CAP) and its doctrine of the “maximum feasible participation” of the poor in the early 1960s. The CAP was created under the leadership of the ... More

This chapter discusses the Community Action Program (CAP) and its doctrine of the “maximum feasible participation” of the poor in the early 1960s. The CAP was created under the leadership of the Bureau of the Budget when poverty was largely ignored during the post-World War II period in the United States One of its proposals was to distribute the resources of existing public and private organizations for the improvement of educational, training, health, and other services for the poor. However, the policy makers of CAP were divided over how to integrate the poor and the Black Americans into state programs; thus, the original concept of CAP was suspended between the rubrics of inclusion and exclusion.Less