Professional community
For a brief description of the entry see: Development of Social Solidarity as a Premise
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The most effective method is cooperation starting in smaller professional groups along the lines of specific, concrete issues and causes. It is more and more frequent that promotion of inter-professional cooperation appears as a concrete task within the institutions, but the foundation of it is the quality of human relations. The fact that in small villages the actors are not present locally (there is no school and/or kindergarten and the social worker, medical doctor and the priest/pastor commute from another village, moreover, often enough even the shop assistant and the postman are also ‘mobile’ and just pass over the village) segregates and ‘locks up’ those who are marginalised and also the initiators. Scarce presence of the experts and the centralisation of the institutions results in the implementation of the practice that it is worthwhile to join the planning and development process at regional level, because the actors can be organised along the lines of the connection points of the small, dispersed villages (based on the clerk’s or notary’ office in the micro-region or districts) and in case of problems deriving from the similarities in their situation, they can be motivated to find community level solutions. The task of community developers is to find and identify the representatives of these affected professions and institutions and involve them into the planning of local actions and create situations in which people living there can become initiators.
Complex, regional development plans are not viable without decision-makers. Who are the decision-makers? Which are the entities that are having resources? Do the decision-makers of the settlement have a vision about their own settlement? Can the settlements become operational if they join a regional plan? What makes a development process or initiative complex and constructive? The answers mostly depend on the willingness to cooperate. The parties capable to act at regional level have to coordinate with each other. The different professional approaches – economic development, environmental development, development of transportation facilities, implementation of social objectives, social mobility, human competitiveness and the system providing social services and care – have to be reconciled and coordinated on territorial basis with due consideration to the needs and motivations of the communities.
In addition to the above findings, the most important considerations we recommend for those who deal with marginalised people when they plan projects with community participation are the following:
- Do the staff members have a community approach?
- Can a working team be set up that is willing to sacrifice time, energy and expertise on this phase? Nowadays, in most cases, there is no funding for the planning phase, or it mostly relies upon external experts.
- Are there experts available who care about the involvement of the marginalised people and about their preparation for their involvement into the planning phase?
- Can we assure publicity for the planning and achievements?
- Can we support the planning phase with actions that constantly bring results and promote the motivation for participation of the actors?
Can we accept that there is no ready plan and the process has no end, that we have to work on it permanently and adjust it to the development of those involved into the planning process, waiting for their following steps and seeing how the external, unforeseeable circumstances change? In short, are we aware of the fact that community planning is equal to community development?
This article based on the following document: