Principles & Effective Practices in Settings-based Promotion & DevelopmentThis is a featured page

This page contains some draft principles that can guide us in integrating our work in settings-based work such as schools and communities. These principles have been excerpted from five webinars leading up to an international symposium.

Thanks to Blake Poland, (Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Canada) our presenter in that webinar and co-author of these principles with Mark Dooris (Healthy Settings Centre, University of Central Lancashire, UK) for helping to frame these discussions with these principles. To see and hear Blake's presentation, click here.


Six Principles of Effective Practice aimed at Social Change in and through Settings

1. Adopt an ecological "whole system" perspective
  • integrating health, equity and sustainability
  • moving from reductionist single-issue/risk factor & linear causality to holistic, inter-coinnected, complex, adaptive systems orientation
  • moving from control (micro-managing process) to unleashing collective genius

2. Start Where People are At
  • a truism in community development
  • grounding our work in the lived experience of others enhances its relevance
  • one intention (listening, respecting, involvement) many processes (dialogue for change, Freirian critical pedagogy, Lerner's circles of compassion)
  • negotiated agenda
3. Root Practice in Place
  • everyday knowledge is embodied and socially located, (emotionally) tied to place
  • noting how place matters for health (Poland et al, 2005)
  • interventions are successful to the extent to which they are taken up by situated actors and embedded in the routines & interactions of the setting
4. Deepen the socio-political analysis
  • beyond symptoms to root causes
  • connecting lived experience to that of others and to the practices/structures that create & sustain exploitation of people and nature
  • a dialogue of co-learners
5. Build on Strengths and Successes
  • rather than labeling groups, communities by their deficits
  • learning what is already working, often against significant odds
  • asset-based community development
  • appreciative inquiry
  • empowerment evaluation
  • positive deviance
6. Build Resilience
  • in a world of accelerating change, the capacity to withstand or better yet, learn from or embrace change is valuable
  • emphasis on efficiency has eroded resilience of persons, organizations, ecosystems, production systems
  • diversity (of perspectives, knowledge, ways of doing) is key
  • e.g., international grassroots Transition Towns initiatives


dmccall
dmccall 		Latest page update: made by dmccall , Sep 21 2010, 7:27 PM EDT (about this update About This Update dmccall Edited by dmccall

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