We are currently witnessing a renewed interest in community development, the likes of which we have not seen for many years.  Increasingly I am drawn into conversations about the best approach, why we need to change, where it would work well.  The NHS 10 Year Plan emphasises the need to be more community focused; and Adult Social Services are transforming their approach to become more focused on relationships and working closer with community through a process called the Human Learning Systems approach. Meanwhile, Pride in Place funding highlights the need for better community cohesion; King’s Lynn is now a Marmot town which focusses on addressing health inequalities through broader and more holistic community support – and the list goes on.

There is nothing new about these conversations, but they have highlighted two things for me: firstly, the recognition that after years of neglecting to invest in community, there is a lot of work to do and, secondly, the fact that we still cannot agree on what a community is or the best way to support them!

However, what is agreed is that we need to build community skills so that people can be more engaged in local decisions and more actively participating in the solutions. One approach to this that seems to be gaining traction (partly because I have been banging on about its value for the last 2 years!) – is Asset Based Community Development or ABCD.  Yes, ABCD has become cool again.

ABCD supports communities by moving away from the traditional deficit model where we try to ‘fix’ things through funded projects and external support, instead concentrating on what is already working in a community and enhancing these things – ‘fixing’ problems by default.

Communities have never stopped working in this way: Good Neighbour Schemes, Foodbanks, and community groups of all kinds have always sought to improve their communities from the inside.  ABCD harnesses this by providing support to mobilise and propagate wider community action.

The challenge is helping people understand how this works, why this works and why it fundamentally changes the way we look at ‘community’.  Longer time scales, different measures of success, the challenge of mobilising communities that have not been encouraged to participate for many years all seem insurmountable – until you ‘get’ it. Then suddenly the approach seems obvious.

At CAN we have been providing training and support for leaders and organisations to understand ABCD and its benefits, what it is – and, equally, what it is not.  We are determined to develop a community of practice to share knowledge and promote the value and necessity of developing our communities’ skills and their ability to participate.  If closer working with communities is to be effective this is vital.

If you want to know more about ABCD, how it can make a difference and how you can support this way of working, please get in touch with Community Action Norfolk (CAN).

You can also check out the Nurture Development site (the national home of all things ABCD): https://www.nurturedevelopment.org/about-abcd/