Introduction to Community

 The following global ideas guide the design and delivery of this course:

• Social and economic justice, appreciation of diversity, encouragement and respect for self-determination, and the ethical use of power combine to form strong and healthy communities.
• Exploring and reflecting on one’s own experience as a member of a community is fundamental to determining how a person will work with others because acknowledging and sharing one’s experiences leads to claiming personal power and precedes the empowerment of others.
• Communities have many resources. Through collaborative work, communities have power, the capacity to effect change, and the abilities to take care of their own members.  Before one can engage in collaborative relationships, however, s/he must understand the relationship between dependence, independence and interdependence.
• Critical thinking and the clear effective articulation of ideas in a variety of formats and settings are essential to effective practice and community involvement.
• In addition to knowing the standards of practice or the expectations of one’s employers, practitioners need to understand their own beliefs and value systems to prevent imposition on others.
• Professional practice requires an understanding of ethical principles and their application to decisions and actions taken.  Ethical decision making requires continual reflection, self- examination and ongoing values clarification.
• By making a commitment to become active, ethical practitioners within the political, educational and social service systems, s/he can contribute to the development of healthy communities.
• The organizations within which practitioners work are complex, imperfect and frustrating.  Practitioners need to actively keep abreast with, reflect on, and apply trends in their fields of practice, develop a personalized model of professional practice, and maintain balance in their lives in order to sustain and renew themselves in their work.
• It is critical that practitioners understand recognized lines of authority, their personal and professional limitations, as well as their abilities and responsibilities.  They must effectively use a myriad of community resources and appropriate referrals.
• Knowing the history of the social services field and service delivery is necessary to understand what has been, what is, and what is to come.