CR #6 — The Models
ABCD model is having the recognition of strengths and believed to have more actions for change in a community. Some key characteristics for ABCD is by collecting stories of community success, building friendships among locals (Mathie, Cunningham 477). ABCD is also mainly created by the community itself meaning that they focus on the problems that are usually unaware by others outside the community (Mathie, Cunningham 474). But one thing that caught my attention was when a community is undergoing the ABCD model, it is not done by ABCD experts which was interesting to me. Does that mean the community do the things that they believe should be done? I think this shows how much power a community can have when they are willing to do things for their own community, with no experts. But as with any model, it comes with some cons. Some cons that might evolve from this model is when money becomes the main priority and enabling external investment as mentioned in “The New Paradigm for Effective Community Impact — Asset-Based.”
For the CED, it includes a wide range of economic activities for low income communities (Clay, Jones 257). The difference between the two is that ABCD involves more with the individuals inside the community and the CED creates more programs for the community. Some examples to better understand the programs CED creates are housing programs and small business development. They are programs that help with problems that are within the community that can in way create more awareness. For this model, money is the main key for this model to prosper. If the money is not moving, these programs will not be able to proceed and function according to “The New Paradigm for Effective Community Impact — Asset-Based.” It also mentions that it can also cost a lot of money to contain these programs.
Some assets that my community partner uses are how they have connections. The reason why they have connection is because they have many resources for their children. They have gotten the opportunity to have Dominican students who are in Service Learning, as well as having volunteers to come into classrooms and have them guide the small children. The days that I come in, they have many adults and teachers who come in and have a one on one tutoring with the kids. I feel that my community member uses more of the ABCD than the CED. My community partner is based on a program to help children inside canal to prosper in their education by helping them with their homework and literacy. And as I mentioned before it was created by the community and helping each other out to figure out what they can do for the students in the community. “The appeal of ABCD lies in its premise that people in communities can organise to drive the development process themselves by identifying and mobilising existing (but often unrecognised) assets,” (Mathie, Cunningham 474).
The person I would want to interview the coordinator of my community partner, who is Lauren Muszynski. When I went to the orientation, she gave me a folder of the problems the children are going through. She wanted everyone who was going to serve the children to have an understanding of who we are going to be with. It would be interesting to see which model she would say her community is in. Not only that but since she has been working at Kid’s Club for a long time, I believe that she truly does have an understanding of what is going on with her community. Some things that I noticed that she has mentioned before is the living situations and the educational gap.
