Jack rothman approaches to community intervention

Development

Summary of the Project

This community development project plan is about working with public housing residents in addressing concerns regarding the increasing number of violence and crime incidence within the community. The project will be carried out in Rapid Creek, Northern Territory suburb with at least 50 family participants that lives in a public housing. These families are identified as a low-income family that depends on a housing from the government, subsidizing public funds. Family members ranges from 3 to 5 members within the household. Most of these family is from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander decent and few numbers are from different racial background.

Aim of the Project

The aim of the project is to provide necessary interventions to facilitate and ensure safety in every individual or every family within the community. It also targets to reduce violence and crime incidence within the community.

Why this Project is Needed

Safety in every community is the major concern not just for the community development worker or public officials but most especially to those people who lives within the community. It is the basic human right that every individual should feel safe within their household or within their community. The risk of being assaulted while walking along the street, cars being stolen or having their houses ransacked by unknown people while owners are away are the risked that the people within the community cannot afford to experience.

The community development worker has been notified by the residence about the increasing violence and crime incidence within the community, it shows people’s willingness to cooperate and this is the que for the community worker to think that there should be someone to facilitate a project that promotes safety within the area. Regardless if there is indeed an increase crimes and violence within the community, safety of the people is always needed for the community to prosper.

Community work approach or model

In the case of the public housing residence where in they are concern about the safety within the community, the approach that will be used by the community development worker is the Locality development. This approach according to Rothman (1968) and Tropman (1995), “fosters locality building by promoting process goals: community competency (the ability to solve problems in a self-help basis) and social integration (harmonious interrelationship among different racial, ethnic and social class groups – indeed among all people.)” (as cited in Levy, H. 2004). This approach fits the situation of the public housing residence since the community people express their interest of cooperation to solve the problem. The approach presupposes that community change should be pursued through broad participation by a wide spectrum of people at the local community level in determining goals and taking civic action (Levy, H., 2004 pp 28). Along with the locality development approach, the social worker will take advantage of the strengths from the people within the community in order to facilitate an activity that would address their safety concern. According to Tesoriero, F (2010), a strength perspective “demands an attitude that acknowledges the inherent human dignity of every person, their capacities and rights and that respects the diversity and commonality among people and group.” Ife, J. (2013 pp 177) emphasizes that, “maintaining cooperative ethos amid a competitive society is not easy, and many people that shows cooperation have been unable to survive more than a short time.” One of the main problem with the cooperation that the community exhibits is that sometimes this cooperation failed to sustain itself until the end of the project, some people just lost the drive when they first decided to cooperate along the way to materializing the project.

The community development worker will also incorporate some theories in practice when developing the community project plan. The most appropriate theory that can be linked in the situation for the public housing residence is that Social movement theory. According to Kenny, S. & Connors, P. (2017), social movement theory is a “form of collective action aimed at achieving social reorganization and/or social change”. The residence of the public housing is trying to gather to achieve a social change within the community. They wanted to achieve a safe and peaceful community. It is the collective action of the people within the community that made the change possible. Homan, M. S. (2008) explains that, “community change only occurs through action, and actions can only occur when a certain number of preconditions exist”.

Project objectives, strategies and activities

OBJECTIVE:

The objective of the project is to facilitate activities that would promote safety and security among the residence of public housing in Rapid Creek and to help reduce the violence and crime incidence within the community.

STRATEGIES:

To achieve the above objective, the community development worker will use the following strategies:

· Utilization of manpower within the community.

· Will recruit volunteers that would help facilitate activities

· Develop a strategic schedule for the implementation of the activity

· Locate common areas where violence and/or crime incidence took place

· Know the internal and external resources that could assist and help in organizing the development plan

ACTIVITIES:

· Arrange a meeting with the leaders in the community and discuss the plan

· Develop a rotating schedule for a group of man from the community to do rounds in areas where common violence and crime incidence took place.

· Coordinate with the nearest police station in the area and request for increased police presence to those areas where violence and crime are commonly taking place.

· Organize a meeting with the people in the community and educate them on how to deal situations of crime and violence.

· Facilitate a cooperation of all the people within the community for a neighborhood watch by conducting a house to house visit for educating them about safety and security.

· Segregate brochures that contains emergency numbers to call when they witnessed violence and crime within the community.

Evaluation

The effectivity of each activities being carried out to prevent violence and crime incidence within the community is based on how effective the implementation would be. Arranging a meeting with the leaders of the community to discuss the plan would help the community worker in gathering man power and know the internal resources within the community. Homan, M. S. (2008 p141), identifies three types of leaders that the community worker should talk to when developing a community development plan, these are the “opinion leaders, whose point of view shape other people within the community’s points view, action leaders, who can get other people to follow and do things and representative leaders, those who represent the community to people outside the community. He also added that these leadership group could “provide you with important insights about the community”.

Utilizing the people in the community for safety includes utilizing men volunteers that would do rotating patrols within those areas that is commonly affected by violence and crime incidence. Along with this activity, the community worker should also coordinate with police officers and request an increase police in areas that are vulnerable to crime and violence incidence. According to Australian Institute of Criminology (2009), “the common element of night patrols is the aim of preventing or stopping harm and maintaining community peace, security and safety.” (retrieve from http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/crm/21-40/crm026.html). This approach to preventing crimes and violence has been adopted to different parts of Australia and is known to be effective in crime prevention.

Education within the people of the community about how to deal with violence and crime incidence if they witness one is very important for prevention and safety for the community. It is also important that people within the community would know where to call for help if ever they are a victim of the incident. There is no method that is effective in prevention other than education.

Budget

Arrange a meeting with the leaders in the community and discuss the plan

Refreshments – 50$

Develop a rotating schedule for a group of man from the community to do rounds in areas where common violence and crime incidence took place.

This activity does not require any budget since man power will be relying on volunteers.

Coordinate with the nearest police station in the area and request for increased police presence to those areas where violence and crime are commonly taking place.

This does not require a budget since, public officials such as police are free of charge.

Organize a meeting with the people in the community and educate them on how to deal situations of crime and violence.

Location/Venue – 250$

Refreshments – 150$

Sound system – 100$

Facilitate a cooperation of all the people within the community for a neighborhood watch by conducting a house to house visit for educating them about safety and security.

Rely on volunteers to do the house to house visit.

Segregate brochures that contains emergency numbers to call when they witnessed violence and crime within the community.

Brochures printing – 100$

Potential funding sources

Funding sources for this project will be coming from funding grants in Northern Territory. One potential funding source is the CBF (Community Benefit Funds), which is collected through electronic gaming machine revenue in SKYCITY Casino, Lasseters Casino and licensed hotels (retrieve from https://nt.gov.au/community/community-grants-and-volunteers/small-and-major-community-grants). This type of funding is for Darwin base Non-profit organizations. They offer two types of funding, the small community grants which costs $10,000 and the major community grants which costs $200,000. Since the project does not need too much expenses, the community worker will be applying for the small community grant.

Qualifications for this grant includes, an NT-based non-profit community organization or an NT regional council, organization must be incorporated under one of the following, the association act, corporation act 2001, aboriginal council and association act 1976 and any other act of parliament.

Project timeline

Arrange a meeting with the leaders in the community and discuss the plan

2 days

Develop a rotating schedule for a group of man from the community to do rounds in areas where common violence and crime incidence took place.

Developing a schedule – 3 days

*rounds in high risk areas will run for minimum of 6 months

*rounds will be done every after two days.

Coordinate with the nearest police station in the area and request for increased police presence to those areas where violence and crime are commonly taking place.

2 days

Organize a meeting with the people in the community and educate them on how to deal situations of crime and violence.

1 day

*at least every 3 months

Facilitate a cooperation of all the people within the community for a neighborhood watch by conducting a house to house visit for educating them about safety and security.

3 weeks

Segregate brochures that contains emergency numbers to call when they witnessed violence and crime within the community.

3weeks

*this will be done together with house to house visit

Limitations and weaknesses of the project

The project involved utilization of man power and most of its activity depends on volunteerism, one of the main concern that the community worker should always address when depending a project through volunteers is the engagement of the people as the project progresses. Constant communication regarding the progress of the project should always be done by the community worker in order to maintain interest among those volunteers. According to Homan, M. S. (2008 p208), “people will change their level of involvement from time to time. Even if they move from a more active to less active role, they may still feel a strong affiliation with the effort of communication with others in the organization continues to occur.” The weakness in engagement is not only applicable for the volunteers, some community residence may not be interested in cooperating because of some personal reasons. The community worker should do all the necessary means to reach out to everyone in the community and at least give them information regarding where to call in case of witnessing violence or crime within the area.

The model that will be used by the community worker can also become a weakness of the project. Using this approach can also have a consequence identified. Levy, H. (2004 p39) pointed out that “one consequence of this might well be that in this approach only goals that have mutual agreement become legitimate or relevant; goals that involve incompatible interests are ignored or discarded as inappropriate.” Since the approach is more of democratic style, consensus is the main basis for decision making. Therefor the community worker should make sure that all angles should be foreseen and that every goal including those that have incompatible interest should be addressed.

References

Homan, M. (2011). Promoting community change : Making it happen in the real world (5th ed.). Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole--Cengage Learning.

Ife, J. (2013). Community development in an uncertain world : Vision, analysis and practice.

Ife, J. (2001). Community development : Community-based alternatives in an age of globalisation (2nd ed.). Frenchs Forest, N.S.W.: Pearson Education.

Levy, H. (2004). Approaches to Community Intervention, Strategies of Community Intervention , 6th edn, Jack Rothman et al ., eds, F. E. Peacock Publishers, Itasca, IL, 2001, 2764. Community Development Journal, 39(2), 190-193.

Kenny, S., & Connors, P. (2017). Developing communities for the future (Fifth ed.).

Tesoriero, F., & Ife, J. (2010). Community development : Community-based alternatives in an age of globalisation (4th ed.). Frenchs Forest, N.S.W.: Pearson Australia.