Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) is an approach to the development of communities based on their strengths and potentials. It involves assessing the resources, skills, and experiences available in a community; organizing the community around issues that move its members into action; and then determining and taking appropriate action.
Asset-Based Community Development: For Healthy Neighbourhoods is a three-day opportunity to learn the fundamentals of Asset-Based Community Development with a focus on Neighbourhood Development and Community Health.
Join Tamarack Institute on April 17-19, 2018 in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada (a short distance from Toronto) for a rare opportunity to learn from Cormac Russell and John McKnight, two of the world’s top trainers in ABCD, for their first time together in Canada.
Whereas needs-based neighbourhood development emphasizes local deficits and looks to outside agencies for help, asset-based community development focuses on growing and leveraging existing strengths within a neighbourhood. Principles that guide ABCD include:
- Everyone has gifts: Each person in a neighbourhood has something to contribute;
- Relationships build a community: People in neighbourhoods must be connected;
- Citizens at the center: Citizens are participants in rather than merely recipients of service;
- Leaders involve others: Healthy neighbourhood development involves everyone;
- People care: We challenge perceived “apathy” by listening to people’s interests;
- Listen: Decisions come from conversations where people are heard;
- Ask: When we ask people their ideas it is more sustainable than having people respond to our solutions;
- Inside-out organization: Local community members are in control;
- Institutions serve the community: Institutional leaders should create opportunities for neighbour-member involvement then “step back”.
In this workshop, you will learn the key fundamentals of ABCD and grow your skills and confidence to use these in your work. We will also connect you to the ground-breaking work that Tamarack is undertaking to deepening community in North America.