Paul Henderson

Skills in Neighbourhood Work

This paper explores the usefulness of the idea of process in neighbourhood work for the practitioner. Four ‘traditions’ of process are identified, from which the practitioner can choose in order to conceptualise his work. Each stage of the neighbourhood work process can suggest the tasks that need to be carried out and the skills, knowledge and resources required. (A form of this paper will be distributed at the 21st International Congress of Schools of Social Work, August 23–27, 1982, Sussex University, Brighton, United Kingdom.)

Working with Rural Communities

Rural development and community work local action and community development, the rural context, rural policy and development, communities and people in rural areas rural communities, people in rural communities groups within rural communities, implications for rural community work developing a strategy principles, the situation of the agency, the nature of the constituency, existence and potential of other agencies, moving from ideas to a strategy, practical examples, a model of rural community work working from a distance, focuses, indirect work, direct community work management in rural community work staff management, realities of practice, evaluation, planning and organizing evaluation, implications for practice, rural community work in the 1990s historical perspective, key factors, themes for the 1990s.

Management in Rural Community Work

‘We are very happy with our patchworker. I have little idea what she does, but she seems to get results, and communities like her.’

Focused, Indirect Work

The two key ingredients of focused, indirect work are that the choice of where to work is made on the basis of a rational decision-making process and that the intervention is time-limited. The decision-making process does not necessarily have to be sophisticated. Indeed, we found that some fieldworkers had developed the approach as a natural part of good practice. A community care worker in Sussex, for example, had sought to identify the gaps in community care in six parishes. She had visited all the local organisations, in addition to professional staff such as health visitors and teachers, churches and pubs, and as a result of this survey had concentrated her work in particular parts of the patch.

Direct Community Work

The opportunities for the community worker who undertakes direct work to become involved in a community are enormous. Having the time to meet people, for the worker to get to know them and vice versa, gives an undoubted distinctiveness to this strand of the model. On the other hand, direct community work is not a licence for a worker to blend wholly into the lives and culture of rural people. Nor should it be assumed that direct work necessarily requires a worker to be based in a community for an unbounded period of time; quite the contrary, precisely because direct work contains within it the danger of being too open-ended, there is a need for it to be formulated, practised and evaluated with rigour. That may include time-limited commitment by the worker.

Rural Development and Community Work

The latter half of the twentieth century has confronted people in rural areas with an almost unprecedented scale and pace of change. From the accessible commuter villages close to our larger cities to the remotest parts of the United Kingdom, many of the traditional features of rural life are being eroded and frequently replaced by unfamiliar and threatening signs. Farming is a dwindling source of employment and wealth in many areas. Young people are leaving their home areas, pushed out by increasingly unaffordable housing, and attracted away by better job and leisure prospects. The proportion of older people is growing and traditional patterns of family and neighbourly care have largely disappeared. Furthermore, the forces of change are increasingly coming from distant places, beyond the immediate grasp of local people.

A Model of Rural Community Work

Practising community work in rural areas is not wholly different from urban community work; the values underpinning the practice are the same. The crucial point is that the intervention of rural community work is applied in a particular context. The nature of rural communities, and the institutions, agencies and organisations operating in them, demand a relevant, appropriate form of practice, one which differs from the urban experience and is more than a diluted version of it. Difficulties can arise if workers attempt to apply a model which fails to recognise key characteristics of rural life.

Developing a Strategy

Increasingly, funders and managers are calling for a greater application of strategic principles to rural community work. This demand is accepted by many practitioners, who see it as an aid to their own thinking and self-management, and as a way of helping the communities themselves to understand and influence the process. However, others are suspicious of something which they fear will distract from the spontaneity and freshness of ‘intuitive’ practice. To an extent, we sympathise, but a strategy need not be complex, sophisticated or inflexible. It is simply a process of making sense of a situation, and mobilising effort and resources in ways which are appropriate.

Rural Community Work in the 1990s

In this final chapter we focus on the prospects for rural community work in the 1990s and beyond. We begin by reviewing initiatives which have been important to the development of rural community work practice. Then, we try to identify some of the key trends which might affect rural areas, before pointing to the challenges facing community work practice.

Working from a Distance

In putting forward the idea that working from a distance constitutes a major plank of rural community work strategy, we are aware that we tread on thin ice. Some experienced practitioners in particular have alerted us to the danger of treating rural communities very superficially. Arguably many people in rural areas are more curious about outsiders than their urban counterparts, not simply in the sense of knowing who someone is but also because they wish to understand him or her. Thus for rural agencies to stand off, as it were, from rural communities risks missing the point.