Community Engagement Theory

Community engagement involves various people to various things and multiple people utilize the expression to represent quite varied methods. The word is applied, usually mutually, including others like ‘participation’ and ‘involvement’, and to define a variety of actions. Community engagement is defined merely as meaning the individuals who live in the same region with town re-development. This is easy to maintain yet hard to achieve: a variety of activities and methods will accomplish progress and on a sliding range of engagement that extends from providing information to people and demanding for their opinions, to providing communities a primary say in arrangements and some states authority over the prospective community ("Community work and social learning theory", 1981).

There is a wide-ranging variety of task examining the theory of proper community engagement that carries on functional experience and analysis throughout the world. Here this essay includes few of the great identified and effective theories for designing community engagement. Two circumstances will require contemplating when explaining the way to community engagement: how profound and how comprehensive direction you plan to continue. The decisions that execute these two pursers will be defined with what will assist you in managing the method and exercises that you practice and what it is you are attempting to perform (Matthew, 2016). Assuming the variety of potential aspects will be important as that will encourage to shape how you interact with regional individuals and what can be accomplished.

There are five pillars of the community engagement which we can get accomplished with the help of effective community engagement programs (King & Cruickshank, 2010), these are mentioned below:

1. Building Connections: With effective community engagement programs, the most important and valuable benefit we got is that we can build new and helpful connections. Connections are meeting with successful and strong people who can help you and guide you with your future development. Building connections are very important in order to be successful in this global world wherein each step you need guidance and help of the senior and experienced individuals.

2. Acting with Humility: Another thing that people can achieve by attending effective and helpful community engagement programs is Acting and humility. People got to know that success can only be earned not bestowed. Community engagement encourages people to act well in order to make good relationships that will directly enhance their behavior in a good way and affect their life and society positively.

3. Developing Understanding: Effective and helpful community engagement programs help people to increase their understanding abilities. These programs can change people by giving them space where they have to mostly listen to the concepts, ideas, and options of other people. This activity helps people to develop the ability of understanding things in the first place which make it easy to implement these concepts and ideas.

4. Affirming Dignity: Another thing that people can achieve by attending effective and helpful community engagement programs is dignity. People can affirm their dignity and become a source of dignity for other members of the community. These events and connections give people a level of satisfaction and a place to learn new things which increase their dignity in the society they are living in.

5. Pursuing Justice: Effective and helpful community engagement programs help people to pursue justice in the society they are living in. The voice of a group of people is better than the voice of a single person regarding any issue or idea. These community engagement programs also provide a platform to raise a voice on any social injustice or inequality around them. This will help people to promote justice in many aspects.

Community Engagement Types and Approaches

Community engagement brings a diversity of styles. It is proposed that there existed three general types of community engagement, but now one more is observed as a fourth type of community engagement. These four types are mentioned below (Egeland, Harmer & Stoddard, 2011):

1. Community engagement that supports organizations, corporations, etc. in order to accomplish the goals or enhance the service delivery

2. Community engagement that focuses on the development of a community or building of a community

3. Community engagement as an element of social development campaigns or as a component of the product of deliberate society organizations

4. Community participation for decision-making and consultation

Initially classified the three kinds for all the subjects, For example, students receive from various systems, needed to believe regarding the importance of community engagement in some sort of surroundings (Heron & Reason, 1997). For many students, an essential center of the training is community building and community engagement (e.g., development studies and social work); for some of the community engagement is not indeed the primary focus, yet it is still recognized as necessary for conventional usage (e.g., learning, well-being), and each community engagement is essential at points (e.g., as part of a deliberation project) yet it is not a significant focus of their activity (Hughes, 2014).

There are other approaches regarding community engagement such as advocacy, community-based research, direct community engagement, and project-based community engagement. These are discussed below:

1. Advocacy: There is also some advocacy community engagements that promote different type issue in any institution, its purpose is to facilitate large and small -scale gatherings to utilizing role models and promoting an operation research approach to recognize and discuss difficulties, to promote awareness, containing more professional and accurate discussions among essential members. There is various types such as peer advocacy, group/collective advocacy, citizen advocacy, and self-advocacy.

2. Community-Based Research: Community-based research is converting more critical in many fields like the healthcare field as populations need to take more substantial ownership and authority over choices concerning the people's health in the towns. Community-based research is beginning and leading regarding people. Community-based research is collaboration among community researchers and associations to generate new understanding or information regarding an engaged community problem in order to carry further development. Members of the community participate in all perspectives about the process of research. Therefore, community-based research is transformative, empowering, systematic, participatory, and collaborative (Hills & Mullett, 2000).

3. Direct Community Engagement: In direct community engagements, the members and the problem solvers are faces to face. These engagements are direct and give instant outcomes and results of the concept, idea, or problem that is discussing in that meeting.

4. Project-Based Community Engagement: These community engagements are held on the primary or specific purpose such as a particular project or issue. Each project and steps of that project need community engagements to discuss and give information about the project to the members of that community.

The Skills and Challenges of Workers and Volunteers in Community Engagement

Discussing the ACU community engagement and ACU careers, there are many challenges observed in the activity, and also workers and volunteers who are students used many skills and developed much more skill during the activities.

ACU arranges community engagement for their students in order to promote equal dignity for all the humans, respects, justice, and equity. The University Strategic Plan 2009 - 2019 supports the development of student awareness of social responsibility to the broader community, and for that purpose, they need few skills to perform these activities and face the challenges. Skills, student needed in ACU community engagement and ACU careers includes leadership skills, skills for personal, ethical and spiritual communication, developmental skills, listening skills, representing skills, teamwork skills, organizing skills, opinion reflection skills, multitasking, assisting skills, time management skills, etc.

The challenges students face during ACU community engagement and ACU careers are many in number. ACU community engagement is to assist and help the marginalized and disadvantaged people in order to encourage equality and dignity among the people of the community. This case of providing assistance and help to the marginalized and disadvantaged people has many challenges faced by the students participating in this activity. I have been volunteering in an aged care ‘Montefiore Home’. It is home to most of the old aged Jewish people where some of them are World War ll and Holocaust survivor. Even though years has passed but the terror of holocaust still remains in them. Hence, it is very hard for residents to trust new people because of which I personally faced difficulty in understanding the residents need. As an international student and English not being my first language, I think it might have brought a slight communication gap between me and the residents. In such a big organization like Montefiore, I faced difficulty in implementing the knowledge provided in training and developmental sessions.

Students might face difficulty in managing the time as they have to do assessments and prepare for their exams and also participate in this community engagement. Sometimes it is difficult for students in implementing the learning of this community engagement in their professional careers.

Theoretical and Practical Aspects of Community Engagement and the Interactions with both ACU Careers and ACU Community Engagement

The theoretical and practical aspects of community engagement encourage the person to develop his or her personal and professional self-development and employability. There are many aspects of community engagement such as building connection, acting with humility, developing understanding, affirming dignity, and pursuing justice. ACU careers and ACU community engagement aid students’ experiences and gain all of these aspects that help them to enhance their personal and professional self-development and employability chances in their future.

Building connections help students for the bright future. ACU community engagement and ACU careers helps in making positive relationships with social organizations and the large community and increase the chances of future career by developing skills and capabilities. It is within people being in a connection that they can increase empathic perception, to realize the abundance of the dignity of the people, and to rise as human. By the growth of regarding relations and commonly useful assistance, community and university can undergo certain institutional and personal fullness. This increase personal and professional self-development and employability of students as community engagement creates positive relationships with society by recognizing and commonly advantageous connections ad skills (Dostilio and Welch, 2019). Students evolves sustainability and ability in society by the power of humility. Humility enables students to view ‘outside’ with fairness (not inferiority or superiority) also to operate together with the community. Humility can serve to minimize the restraint essential to some perspectives of community activity. Humility is a necessary precondition for specific knowledge and honor for the dignity of a human (The rights and responsibilities of students, 1978). Humility forces student's minds to contribute to those with whom they serve and produce relationships. Such a gentle, non-moralistic, and non-judgmental approach honors the freedom, hence the interest, of totally concerned, so that collectively students create morals and act in systems that promote personal engagement that help them in their future. ACU careers try to find how environment and experiences are developed. Based on such understanding students can answer in an acknowledged, respectful, and sympathetic manner to create significant results with the community. Honoring community members indicates operations to assure the stability and requirement of significant human rights (Fisher et al., 2018). This further means securing the extension of capabilities of people so that student completely realizes a purpose, meaning, and self-worth. These engagements to dignity translate within a primary adjustment towards the relief of these various disadvantaged through the constructions and beliefs of the modern community. Promoting the dignity of people involves struggling holistically in a genius of humility and collaboration to the community welfare. Which is beneficial in establishing justice in the community.

Conclusion

ACU community engagement and ACU careers help students to work for the welfare of the community that also increase their chances of future development and career. Throughout improving understanding, building positive connections, acting with humility, and affirming human dignity community engagement operates to rise in solidarity by these several in need, and to promote the general welfare of the communities. This suggests serving the welfare of everyone, and to fair chances for participation in the whole community's aspects. The public welfare cannot be accomplished if students neglect these greatest in need. ACU community engagement endures a significant adjustment towards prioritizing the requirements of people who undergo the most marginalization and disadvantaged.

References

Australian Catholic University 2019, BIPX202 Placement Provider Information Booklet.

Community work and social learning theory 1981, Social Work. doi: 10.1093/sw/26.2.146

Dostilio, L. and Welch, M. 2019, The Community Engagement Professional's Guidebook. Bloomfield: Campus Compact.

Egeland, J., Harmer, A., & Stoddard, A. 2011, To Stay and Deliver: Good practice for humanitarians in complex security environments, Policy Development and Studies Branch (PDSB), UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

Fisher, K., Smith, T., Brown, L., Wakely, L., Little, A., & Wakely, K. et al. 2018, ‘Value-adding to health professional student placement experiences: Enhancing work readiness and employability through a rural community engagement program’, Journal Of Teaching And Learning For Graduate Employability, 9(1), 41. doi: 10.21153/jtlge2018vol9no1art698

Heron, J. & Reason, P. 1997, A participatory inquiry paradigm. Qualitative Inquiry. 3 (3) 274-294.

Hills, M. & Mullett, J. 2000, ‘Community-Based Research: Collaborative Action for Health and Social Change’, Victoria, B.C.: Community Health Promotion Coalition, University of Victoria.

Hughes, G. 2014, ‘Dignity, Politics, and the Community of Being’, SSRN Electronic Journal. doi: 10.2139/ssrn.2486238

King, C., & Cruickshank, M. 2010, ‘Building capacity to engage: community engagement or government engagement?’, Community Development Journal, 47(1), 5-28. doi: 10.1093/cdj/bsq018

Matthew, R. 2016, ‘Community engagement: behavioral strategies to enhance the quality of participatory partnerships’, Journal Of Community Psychology, 45(1), 117-127. doi: 10.1002/jcop.21830

The rights and responsibilities of students. 1978, [Washington]: Dept. of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office of Human Development Services, Administration for Children, Youth and Families, Youth Development Bureau.

Word: 1500

Learning Outcomes

LO3 evaluate the ethical and social responsibility of participants in business and community organisations (GA4, GA8);

LO4 evaluate strategies related to work readiness drawn from volunteer experience and associated personal and professional skill development (GA4, GA5, GA9);

LO5 demonstrate professional behaviour and attitudes (GA2, GA5); and

LO6 critically reflect upon the impact of the community engagement experience on their values, assumptions and attitudes (GA2, GA4, GA9)

GA

GA1 demonstrate respect for the dignity of each individual and for human diversity

GA2 recognise their responsibility to the common good, the environment and society

GA4 think critically and reflectively

GA5 demonstrate values, knowledge, skills and attitudes appropriate to the discipline and/or profession

GA8 locate, organise, analyse, synthesise and evaluate information

GA9 demonstrate effective communication in oral and written English language and visual media

Purpose: The purpose of this assessment is for students to reflect and report upon their community engagement placement and present their real world learnings in a Learning in the Community Report

1500-word report on placement. Students will reflect on the following topics:

Report : there is no format to these report just the highlighted requirements in colour must be discussed.

Reflect on how you learned through the community engagement, how you grew as a person, how you matured by evaluating the community you were engaged with.

The common goods mission adaptation and the ways they were caring for the audience.

• The audience: the community of people that you helped to serve during the placement

As my community engagement volunteering was on Montefiore home an age care where most of the community are Jewish and among them some were holocaust and world war ll survivors. The link to the organization