1 Community Organisation: Concepts and Principles

1 Community organisation : Concept and Principles11 Community organisation : Concepts and Principles * Suresh PathareIntroductionIn social work profession there are three basic methodsof working with people (individuals, groups andcommunities). We have already studied the twomethods namely, social casework and social groupwork. The third basic method is communityorganisation. As we are aware, social casework isaimed at helping individuals on one-to-one basisand social group work seeks to facilitate thedevelopment of individuals through group aim of Community organisation is developingcapacity in the Community by making it moreorganised to handle its own needs or organisation is a well-established methodin social work.

2 It has value orientation and thepractice is guided by a set of general and Definition of CommunityOrganisationMeaningBefore we get to know more about communityorganisation as a method of social work, let us firstunderstand the meaning of the term we use. Theterm Community organisation has several is being often used synonymous to Community * Dr. Suresh Pathare, TISS, Tuljapur2 Social Work Intervention with Communities and Institutionswork, Community development and communitymobilization. In general, Community organisationmeans helping the Community to solve its the context of social work profession in India,the term is used to denote a method of social workto intervene in the life of a sociology we learn that society and social institutionsare more than just a collection of individuals.

3 Itincludes how those individuals are linked to eachother. These are sets of systems such as economy,political organisation , value, ideas, belief systems,technology, and patterns of expected behaviours (socialinteraction). It means that just a collection ofindividuals living at a common place are not necessarilyorganised. To call them organised they need to havea set of common ideas and expectations. This givesthem a social structure and some social processesthat make the organisation something (social). Itgoes beyond the individuals that compose it is important to note that just formingvarious groups in Community having some structureor form ( having a president, treasurer, secretary,etc.) does not make the Community organised.

4 It isnot the multiplicity of institutions, interest groupsor set of activities, which make an organisedcommunity. Actually it may create more conflictsand disrupt normal life. Thus the importantdetermining factors of Community organisation areinteraction, integration and co-ordination of theexisting institutions, interest groups and activities,and evolving new groups and institutions if necessary,to meet the changing conditions and needs of organisation : Concept and Principles3 DefinitionTo study and to be able to engage in communityorganisation practice it is necessary to have a cleardefinition. There are several definitions availablein literature, which have been put forth at differenttimes and in differing context.

5 The common elementin most of them is matching resources to will discuss here two most widely accepteddefinitions of Community G. Ross (1967) defines Community organisationas a process by which a Community identifies itsneeds or objectives, gives priority to them, developsconfidence and will to work at them, finds resources(internal and external) to deal with them, and indoing so, extends and develops cooperative andcollaborative attitudes and practices in the Community .In this definition by process he meant a movementfrom identification of a problem or objective to solutionof the problem or attainment of the objective in thecommunity. There are other processes for dealingwith Community problems, but here he called thecommunity organisation process as one by whichthe capacity of the Community to function as anintegrated unit grows as it deals with one or morecommunity problems.

6 The task of the professionalworker in Community organisation is to help, initiate,nourish, and develop this process. His task is alsoto make this process conscious, deliberative, andunderstood. Community , in the sense in which it is used here,refers to two major groupings of people. Firstly itmay be all the people in a specific geographic area, , a village, a town, a city, a neighbourhood, ora district in a city. In the same manner it could4 Social Work Intervention with Communities and Institutionsrefer also to all the people in a province or a state,a nation, or in the world. Secondly, it is used toinclude groups of people who share some commoninterest or function, such as welfare, agriculture,education, or religion.

7 In this context communityorganisation may be involved in bringing these personstogether to develop some awareness of, and feelingfor their Community and to work at common problemsarising out of the interest or function they havein second definition we will discuss here is byKramer and Specht (1975), which is in more technicalterms. They defined that Community organisationrefers to various methods of intervention wherebya professional change agent helps a Community actionsystem composed of individuals, groups or organisationsto engage in planned collective action in order todeal with special problems within the democraticsystem of values. According to their explanations, it involves two majorinterrelated concerns: (a) the interaction processof working with an action system which includesidentifying, recruiting and working with the membersand developing organisational and interpersonalrelationships among them which facilitates theirefforts.

8 And (b) the technical tasks involved inidentifying problem areas, analyzing causes,formulating plans, developing strategies and mobilizingthe resources necessary to have effective analysis of both these definitions reveals thatthey cover the Need-Resources Adjustment approach, the Social Relationships approach and a combinationof the two ideas of meeting needs and developmentof co-operative organisation : Concept and Principles5 The distinguishing features of Community organisationpractice are derived largely from the three dimensions.(1) The nature of its setting and focus the communityand its problems, 2) from the nature of its goals enhanced functional capacity of the communityand its ability to influence the social welfare policy,and 3) from the techniques it employs towards effectingthe inter-personal and inter-group relationships ofthe members of the Community .

9 The statementsdefining Community organisation method, stressindividually or in combination the above three factorsand also refer to clientele and the total processand the way in which the method is Work and CommunityOrganisation in Social WorkHaving discussed the meaning and definition ofCommunity organisation let us now try to compareit in the context of Community work and social workprofession. In social work the term Community work is often used with different meanings. In socialwork literature we find that the term communitywork , Community development , communityorganisation and Community empowerment areat times interchangeably used for the work withcommunities. Some authors have used these termsfor the same types of work whereas others usethem to refer to different types of work work has a long history as an aspectof social work.

10 It has passed through various over the world it has been recognized as anintegral part of social work practice. History showsthat Community work even preceded social workeducation. In UK and USA Community work in social6 Social Work Intervention with Communities and Institutionswork began in the 1800 with the charity organisationmovement and the settlement house movement. Duringthe initial phase in UK, Community work was primarilyseen as a method of social work, trying to helpindividuals to enhance their social adjustment. Themain thrust was to act as a means to coordinatethe work of voluntary India the experience of working with slumcommunity in the city of Mumbai lead to theestablishment of the first institution of social workeducation in 1936.