Every
person should have the necessary support to help him/her become involved in
personal and enduring relationships with non-paid persons who love, respect and
care for the person.
John
McKnight in his book The Careless Society, Community and It’s Counterfeits comments
on his visit to a group home in a small
If John
McKnight were to visit Kenora his finding would probably differ very
little. The movement of individuals from
institutions from large institutions to Kenora have secured little positive
benefits for many individuals living in KACL group homes. Some residents’ contacts outside of staff are
limited to one or two relatives. Sad to
say this may also be the case of some “life sharers” and participants living in
“family homes.”
Both the
name of the Association and the mission statement includes the term community
living and the notion of the inclusion in the community. How does the Association measure up? What can it do to reverse the situation?
Loneliness
Loneliness
seems to be an essential human experience.
It is not just about being alone. Loneliness is not the same thing as
solitude. We can be happy, because we
know we are part of a family, a community, even the universe itself. Loneliness is a feeling of not being part of
anything, of being cut off. It is a
feeling of being unworthy, of not being able to cope in the face of a universe
that seems to work against us. (Vanier
1998, Page 33)
Belonging – Man the Social Animal
The basic human need is for at least one person
who believes and trusts in us. But that
is never enough, it doesn’t stop there.
Each of us needs to belong, not just to one person but to a person but
to a family, friends, a group, and a culture.
There is an innate need in our hearts to identify with a group, both for
protection and for security, to discover and affirm our identity, and to use
the group to prove our worthiness and goodness, indeed to prove that we are
better than others. (Vanier 1998, Page
35)
All human being are born with a set of shared
inborn propensities, instincts and capacities of which sociability is one…
altruistic and selfish behaviour are everywhere found together and the existence
of both is fully explicable, thanks to Darwin and his twentieth-century
successors (Runciman 1998)
Am I My Brother’s Keeper?
Boundaries and Relationships
The Bible includes the story of Cain and Abel in which
after having killed his brother and being asked by the Lord as to where his
brother is he enquires “Am I my brother’s keeper? The answer is not given but it surely must be
no. He is merely his brother’s
brother. The problem of keeperism or
co-dependence is a problem that stands in the way of both true selfhood and
true community. Until a person knows
who he is, it will be difficult to have healthy relations whether they are
casual acquaintances, friends or close relationships. Between a “me” and a “you” there must be some
neutral space so that I can distinguish between a “myself” and “you”.
Only once a boundary is established between a
"me" and a "you do" does the question of community
arise. Whitefield has a sequence in the
development of healthy boundaries of relationships Whitefield 1993 Page 48,
49. Whitefield 1990 and 1991 provide
experiential aids, which can be used as a full recovery program from severe
keeperism or co-dependence.
Definitions
Community
Communities are collections of individuals who are
bonded together by natural will and who are together bonded to a set of shared
ideas and ideals. This bonding and binding is tight enough to transform them
from a collection of “I’s” into a collective “we”. As a “we” members are part of a tightly knit
web of meaningful relationships. This
“we” usually shares a common place and over time comes to share common
sentiments and traditions that are sustaining.
When describing community it is helpful to speak of community by kinship,
of mind, of place, and of memory.
(Sergiovanni 1994, xvi)
Communities are made up of people linked together
through kinship, locality, shared ideas, or common beliefs. (Rice and Prince 2000)
A community is a group of people who share affective
bonds and a culture. It is defined by
two characteristics: Communities require
a web of affective-laden relations among a group of individuals (rather than
merely one-on-one relations or chains of individual relations) relations that
often crisscross and reinforce one another.
And being a community entails having a commitment to a set of shared
values, norms, and meaning. (Etzioni
1995)
John McKnight suggests a definition but “which is so practically
useful that it can become central to the work of those concerned about the
incorporation of labelled people into community life.” A community is more than a place; it is a
collection of associations. It comprises
various groups of people who work together on a face-to-face basis in public
life, not just in private.
McKnight points out an observation of Alex de
Tocqueville who visited
1. They decided
who had the power to decide what was a problem
2. They
decide how to solve a problem
3. They often
decide that they would themselves become key actors in implementing the
solution.
Friendship
In common usage, someone attached by feelings of
affection is a friend, someone who acts as a patron or benefactor is a friend,
and someone who is simply not hostile is a friend. (Amando 1993, Page 10)
These questions reflect some sensible criteria for
defining friendship: common interest, equality, mutuality, and understanding…
the meaning of any friendship is created by the ways in which its participants
enact and talk about it. Commonality,
equality, mutuality, and comprehension are best a detached observer. (Amado page 20)
Friendships do exist between paid caregivers and
people with disabilities and this phenomenon is gaining wider recognition and
appreciation. However, it is important
to recognize also that such friendships are the exceptions and not the rule. The well established and powerful roles of
“client” and “staff” form rocky soil making it difficult for friendships to
take root and flower… when such friendships do develop, it is not possible to
fully explain why they do. Potential
reasons include extensive long-term and constant contact and support (or at
least non-interference) from the agency.
A genuine interest in and attraction to a person with a disability and
his or her situation, and in return, recognition of an ally and /or protector,
may lead to the establishment of a friendship.
(Amado, Page 106)
A friend is not a volunteer… when someone volunteers
for another person, there is often an imbalance and lack of reciprocity in the
relationship – it is someone doing something for someone else…. In contrast, a friend is there for someone
because he or she likes the person and wants to be with him, or her. Both people contribute and arte contributed
to in the relationship.1
Open Communities/ Closed Communities
Jean Vanier in Becoming Human speaks of closed groups and
open groups:
In the early stages of community life, we did
all we could to strengthen the bonds among all the members…. The intensity of
community life provides structures for people, helping them to find the
necessary intellectual and spiritual nourishment and to live in security.
Such intense community life can, at the same
time, cut the community off from neighbours and society at large; it can even
prevent members from growing in autonomy, personal freedom, responsibility, and
inner maturity. Community life then
becomes like a secure, “ideal” world, where the community is expected to look
after all the needs of its members, until, of course it is breaks down due to
unfilled expectations and inner conflicts that invariably arise.
However, if a community seeks total immersion
in its surrounding area, it can lose its identity. Community members can become so intent on
being one with their neighbours, on not being seen as different, that their
sense of belonging, their sense of group identity, and, hence, their vision,
gradually disappears. It is not easy to
strike a balance between closeness, having a clear identity that fosters growth
in certain values and spirituality, and openness to those who do not live with
the same values…
It requires the wisdom, maturity, and inner
freedom of community members to help the community find the harmony that not
only preserves and deepens life and a real sense of belonging but also gives
and receives life. Then the community
has truly become an environment for becoming human, helping all to openness,
freedom, and to commitment to common good.
The Role of Family as Community Connectors
But families can be limiting (Amanda 1993, page 3). We
are always children to our parents.
The Role of Friends as Community Connectors
Friends can stretch us beyond our families….
Friendships stand outside the limiting judgements and protections of
relatives. With friends, people can
hope, dream, and dare afresh. With
friends, people try new feats, fall, flat, and try again; people make attempts
with friends that they may never make with their parents watching…
Friends help people move beyond human service goals –
the more friends the more options.
Friends help people rehearse Adult roles – Misguided
behaviour with a friend can dissolve a relationship immediately. Perhaps mush of adult development comes from
loosing certain friends and subsequently pondering the consequences and
adjusting the way we act with others.
Friends serve as fresh role models.
Good friendship generates own energy
Friendship becomes a haven from stress. (Amado 1993)
The Role of Staff/Volunteers in Supporting Community Connections
(Amado page 299)
When persons with disabilities experience barriers or set
backs – medical, social or others workers can bring their training and
expertise to bear on a problem – if you are having a heart attack call the
doctor not the support circle (Amado, page 3)
Policy Path to Inclusion
John McKnight suggests the following policy for
Association’s committed to authentic community living:
It is our policy to reduce dependence on human
services by increasing interdependence in community life through a focus on the
gifts and capacities of people who have been excluded from community life
because of their labels (Knight, 1995, page 122)
Steps along the Way – Finding and Using Community Capacities Approach
Steps Along the Way – Contrived or Backward
Integration into the Community
Examples:
Agape Soup Table
a)
Persons
with special needs working along side volunteers
b)
KACL
staff eating at soup Kitchens with or without persons with special needs
c)
Micro
businesses
Ski Club
Appendix A
A mission statement
is a broadly defined but enduring statement of purpose that distinguishes an
organization from others of its type and identifies the scope of its operations
in terms of clients and services.
It should embody its members' philosophy, reveal the image it wishes the
association to seek reflects the association's self-concept and indicates its
primary client's needs that the association will attempt to satisfy.
The mission statement of KACL reads as
follows:
The goal of KACL is to ensure that all
persons with special needs have the opportunity to live a meaningful and
satisfying lifestyle and interact as an equal in their community by providing
continuing opportunities for personal growth through education, training,
support, advocacy and an informed public.
Appendix B
Reference
Exerts from
Peck, M. Scott (1987) The Different Drum, Community Making and Peace,
The True Meaning of Community
We bandy around the word “community.” We apply it to almost any collection of
individuals – a town, a church, a synagogue, a fraternal organization, an
apartment complex, a professional association – regardless of how poorly those
individuals communicate with each other.
It is a false use of the word.
If we are going to use the word meaningful we
must restrict it to a group of individuals who have learned how to communicate
honestly with each other, whose relationship go deeper than their masks of
composure, and who have developed some significant commitment to “rejoice
together, mourn together” and to delight in each other, make other’s conditions
our own.”
Inclusiveness, Commitment, and Consensus
Community is and must be inclusive…Inclusiveness is
not an absolute. Long-term communities
must invariably struggle over the degree to which they are going to be
inclusive…. True communities, if they want to remain such, are always reaching
to extend themselves. The burden of
proof falls upon exclusivity. Communities
do not ask, “how can we justify taking this person in? Instead the question is
“Is it all justifiable to keep this person out?” in relation to other groupings
of similar size of purpose, communities are always relatively inclusive.
All human differences are included. All “soft” individually is nurtured… how is
this possible? How can such differences
be absorbed, such different people coexist?
Commitment – the willingness to co-exist – is crucial. Sooner or later, somewhere along the line and
preferably sooner), the members of a group in some way must commit themselves to
one another if they are to become or stay a community. Exclusivity, the great enemy to community,
appears in two forms, excluding the other and excluding yourself…. Community,
like marriage, requires that we hang in there when the going gets a little rough. It requires a certain degree of commitment.
In community, instead of being ignored, denied,
hidden, or changed differences are celebrated as gifts.
Realism
A second characteristic of community is that it is
realistic… An important aspect of the realism of community deserves mention:
humility. While rugged individualism
predisposes one to arrogance, the “soft” individualism of community leads to
humility. Begin to appreciate each
other’s gifts, and you begin to accept your own inadequacy and
imperfection. Be fully aware of human
variety, and you will recognize the interdependence of humanity. As a group of people do these things – as
they become a community – they become more and more humble, not only as
individuals but also as a group – and hence more realistic.
Contemplation
Among the reasons that a community is humble and hence
realistic is that it is contemplative.
It examines itself. It is
self-aware. It knows itself… The essentials
goal of contemplation is increased awareness of the world outside oneself, the
world inside oneself, and the relationship between the two.
Once a group has achieved community the single most
common thing members express is “I feel safe here”.
So another of the characteristics of community is that
it is healing and converting. Yet I have
deliberately not listed that characteristic by itself, lest the subtlety of it
be misunderstood. For the fact is that
most of our human attempts to heal and convert prevent community…
Paradoxically, then a group of humans becomes healing and converting only after
members have learned to stop trying to heal and convert. Community is a safe place precisely because
no one is attempting to heal or convert you, to fix you, to change you.
Appendix C McKnight’s Characteristic of Good Guides to Inclusion into
Community and Community Capacity
Community Capacity is the existence of individuals,
local groups, and associations who are prepared to voluntarily provide
assistance, time, or resources to others in the community.
Good Guides:
1. They bring
a person into a web of associational life.
2. They are
well connected in the interrelationships of community life.
3. They are
trusted by their community peers
4. They
believe in a hospital community
5. They learn
that they must say goodbye to the person they guide into community.
Appendix D References
Amando, Angela Novak (1993) Friendships and Community
Connections between People with and without Developmental Disabilities,
Aristotle (1996) The Nicomachean Ethics, Ware: the
Wordsworth Edition,
Kretzmann, John P. A and John L. McKnight (1993)
Building Communities from the Inside Out,
McKnight, John (1995) The Careless Society, Community
and Its Counterfeits,
Peck, M, Scott (1987) The Different Drum, Community
Making Peace,
Pilisuk, Marc and
Putnam, Robert D and Lewis M. Feldstein (2003) Better
Together, Restoring the American Community,
Putnam, Robert D (2000) Bowling Alone, The Collapse
and Revival of American Community,
Rice, James J, and Michael J. Prince (2000) Changing
Politics of Canadian Social Policy,
Runciman, W.GH. (1998) The Social Animal,
Sergiovanni, Thomas J. (1994) Building Community in
Schools, San Francisco Jossey-Bass Publishers
Taylor, Steven J. (1991) Life in the Community,
Baltimore: Paul H. Brooks
Whitfield, Charles L. (1990) A Gift to Myself,
Whitfield, Charles L. (1991) Co-dependence, Healing
the Human Condition,
Whitfield, Charles L (1993) Boundaries and
Relationships, Knowing, Protecting and Enjoying the Self,