Community Capacity, Strengths-Based Approaches, Family Resilience, Social Organization

Community Capacity, Strengths-Based Approaches, Family Resilience, Social Organization 

As a geographic unit of aggregation, the community can range from small (a family's apartment building, for example) to large (the county in which the apartment building is located). As such, community capacity may need to be tapped in varying amounts throughout a family's lifetime (Bowen et al., 2000). For instance, parents with children in the early and middle adolescent years could find that a neighborhood with high community capacity can be a particularly valuable asset - a developmental period when children spend fewer hours at home and more of their time in the community. A family living in a community with high capacity has both potential benefits and influence over the level of capacity in the community, which is consistent with a strengths-oriented approach. On the contrary, families that are found in communities that have faced hardships such as war and crime will fail to help themselves or bounce back when they face challenges.  Such families are seen as broken and they focus predominantly on weaknesses and negative experiences. 

By following a strengths-based approach, people who are receiving services and support systems can jointly decide on an outcome based on their strengths. In a strengths-based approach, individuals and communities are valued for their abilities, skills, knowledge, connections, and potential. An approach based on strengths focuses on the inherent strengths of individuals, families, groups, and organizations, utilizing these strengths to assist in recovery and empowerment. In order to account for the operation of formal systems and informal networks at this macro-level, Mancini and Bowen (2013) developed a social organization theory of action and change. In contrast to numerous theories addressing how communities disintegrate, this work is grounded in a strengths-oriented perspective, focuses on informal networks, and examines how communities build and sustain assets. Therefore, as argued by Mancini and Bowen (2013), the social organizational theory describes “how people in a community interrelate, cooperate, and provide mutual support; it includes social support norms, social controls that regulate behavior and interaction patterns, and networks that operate in a community.”  Being a central player in the social organizational process, community capacity helps implement actions that produce positive results for local residents and their families, including strengthening family resilience. 

       References 

Bowen, G. L., Martin, J. A., Mancini, J. A., & Nelson, J. P. (2000). Community capacity: Antecedents and consequences. Journal of Community Practice, 8(2), 1-21. 

Mancini, J. A., & Bowen, G. L. (2013). Families and communities: A social organization theory of action and change. In Handbook of marriage and the family (pp. 781-813). Springer, Boston, MA.