Process-focused and product- focused community ...

Churchman

ABSTRACT This paper presents a structured, multi-faceted discussion of community planning as an empowering professional practice. The process-focused and the product-focused styles of community planning are developed within a conceptual model for how these two types of planners might integrate empowerment into their professional practice. The model uses stages oi rational comprehensive planning, as a basic planning method, and stages of community empowerment, as both the context and the desired planning outcome.

Introduction Empowerment as theory and as practice is directed towards overcoming powerlessness. It is defined as change processes that are experienced through efforts to gain control over one's life, destiny and environment (Rappaport, 1987). Empowerment is also a social process of change encompassing individual and community empowerment, which could benefit from an empowering professional practice. Granted, an empowering professional practice is not a necessary requisite for an empowerment process. However, there are many situations in which professionals presently work with powerless individuals and communities without the professional approaches and tools that would enable them to facilitate processes of empowerment. The goal of this paper is to present a conceptual model and a series of action principles in the hope that these will increase the applicability of COMMUNrTYDEVB-OPMEfJTXIURNAL

VOL 32 NO. 1 January 1997 pp. 3-16

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Process-focused and productfocused community planning: Two variations of empowering professional practice

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COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT JOURNAL VOL 32 NO. 1 1997

Dimensions of Empowering Community Planning Processes Community planning can be defined in terms of a series of dimensions, each represented by a continuum. The dimensions relevant to this discussion are the following: a) Directive or Nondirective Intervention. Directive planners define their goals and subject matter by themselves, whereas nondirective planners involve the community members in the decision-making process (York, 1984). b) Service Delivery-Focused or Resident-Focused Work (Briscoe, 1976). The service-focused planner is concerned primarily with developing services and resources according to his/her organization's policy and priorities. The resident-focused planner works with residents in his/her area of intervention, helping them to define their needs and take action to meet them. c) Centralized or Decentralized Decision-Making (Lauffer, 1979; Handler, 1990). At the centralized end of the continuum the goals and the solution are determined ahead of time, by some outside factor. At the other end, decisions are delegated to the field level, so that local considerations have a greater weight (Barr, 1995).

1. Since this paper is concerned primarily with the professional practice of empowerment, we wffl not provide at this stage the expected, lengthy discussion of various posstole definitions of empowerment. Readers who are not acquainted with the concept, can refer to the chapter on 'Stages of community empowerment process' that provide a detafled definition of this process.

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empowerment as a social methodology. Community planning is the professional practice wherein we choose to ground empowerment (Glazer & Strauss, 1967), because of its potential for influencing the development of individuals and communities and because of its relevance for a variety of professions. We define community planning as any purposeful activity designed to build a new community or help strengthen an existing one, either in social and/or physical terms. A community planner is any professional, whether a town planner (Berkeley etal, 1995), rural developer (Chambers, 1983), community organizer (Cox et al, 1984), architect (Hester, 1987), or educator (Horton & Freire, 1990) whose activity fits this description. Aware of the link that exists in the field of planning between empowerment and radical thinking (Friedmann, 1987,1992), our aim in this paper is to point to the possibility of various options for empowering professional practice. We particularly wish to emphasize that preventing disempowerment is a sufficiently important goal to justify the development of approaches and tools geared towards this for those professionals for whom actively facilitating empowerment is beyond their frame of reference.'

PROCESS-FOCUSED AND PRODUCT-FOCUSED COMMUNrTY PLANNING

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A Conceptual Model of Process-Focused and Product-Focused Empowering Community Planning Models do not, of course, accurately reflect reality, since they are far too neat and orderly. Our model, too, is limited in this manner. It presents a hypothetical situation where each process begins at the beginning stage: the community is powerless when the planner begins the planning process, the planner's steps for facilitating empowerment progress in parallel stages and at parallel speed with the progress of the planning task, and the people respond positively to the empowerment-facilitating steps taken. This could happen in reality, but it would be a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence in a given

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d) Focused or Open-Ended Task Definition (Adams, 1990). The planner may be sent into the community with a specific and defined task or s/he may have the autonomy to make decisions on the spot regarding both the way s/he works and the task itself. e) Community as Object or Community as Subject (Freire, 1970). Some planners see the community simply as the arena for performing a professional activity. Others see their task as the development of understanding between them and the community and the creation of a joint solution. f) Expert or Reflective Practitioner (Schon, 1983). Experts present themselves as the sole knowledge bearers and as those responsible for the results, and usually arrive with a ready-made plan. Reflective practitioners 'Spend longer and go further' to study the specific problems of each place or group and then think through to a plan (Chambers, 1983). The position taken on each of these dimensions has serious implications for the extent to which community planning can or cannot be empowering. The hypothesized distinction is that community planning that tends toward the nondirective, resident-focused, decentralized, open-ended, community - as - subject, reflective sides of the continua exemplifies an empowering professional practice. A more subtle distinction uses the same dimensions to identify two profiles of community planners: one, the planner whose focus is the product, and the other whose focus is the process (Churchman, 1990). The former leans more toward the directive, objective, expert side, whereas the latter will be found more towards the other side of the continua. The processpeople oriented planner clearly has the potential for being empowering, although this does not guarantee that in every situation s/he will be so. In a parallel fashion the product-oriented planner clearly has the potential for operating in a disempowering manner, but s/he also has opportunities to facilitate empowerment through her/his practice. Our goal in this paper is to present a conceptual model for how these two types of planners might integrate empowerment into their professional practice.

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