Community Organizing

About six years ago the youngest of my six children left home and my childrearing days were over. My wife and I looked at each other and breathed a sigh of relief mixed with the bittersweet feelings that accompany enjoying seeing children create their own lives and missing them beyond comprehension. Of course I still had the responsibilities that come with having adult children and grandchildren but I began thinking about what I wanted to do beyond enjoying time with my life partner. After about a year I settled in on becoming a therapist and returned to school to complete the educational requirements to be licensed. I had started this path about thirty years previously but never finished because – well – children and life happened.
One of the first courses I took was community psychology. The professor was a gentleman by the name of Dr. Art Warmoth Ph.D. who began his teaching career with the likes of Carl Rogers at Somoma State University. In the first class he asked each one of us our goals. In a class of 20+ people there were two or three who had the same goals I did. I was shocked by Professor Warmoth’s response. Paraphrasing, he said that he was tired of hearing about all the people who wanted to become therapists. He felt our communities and culture were suffering so much that working with individuals was simply not producing the needed healing fast enough. He said the only path that was producing the kinds of results needed in our modern culture was community organizing. The semester focused on defining and understanding community organizing. Our final was a project for us to identify our own leadership styles and design a community project that was consistent with that style.
Professor Warmoth struck a chord in my heart. As a result of the work that came out of that class I chose to go to a social work graduate program instead of a psychology graduate program. In the community my work shifted from working with individuals and small groups to working with collaborations. I have fully embraced the concept of community organizing and over these last few years I have worked to explore and discover my particular areas of interest and leadership styles.
Since I was 25 I have always worked in the human services field. I have always felt an affinity with people who are in a great deal of emotional and/or psychological pain. For almost 20 years I worked in psychiatric inpatient units and mental health social rehabilitation programs. Later on I worked with people dying of life threatening illnesses. Later on I worked in the field of drug dependence treatment with both adolescents and adults. Currently I am working with children in a foster family agency. Now that I am almost 64 years old I don’t see changing professions but I do see changing the focus of my work.
I am struck with the intolerance in my community for people who are suffering. I find that many people actually blame the very people who are suffering for the situation they find themselves in. As funds constrict in this time of financial crisis the funding for community programs continues for law enforcement agencies while human service agencies are either eliminated or severely cut back. Even when it is pointed out that arresting and incarcerating a person is more expensive that providing housing and employment our community leaders respond with “people make their own choices and must take responsibility for those choices and suffer the consequences”. These statements are in response to people needing help with drug dependence disorders, mental health disorders, homelessness and/or loss of employment.
I believe these kinds of statements and decisions come out of fear. When I look at our culture, whether it is at a county, state, or national level, I get a sense that governmental decisions are made based on fear of loss. Loss of rights, property, freedom, and opportunities. As stated in my previous blog I believe the problems of our culture are to a large degree a result of viewing them as problems. Seen as challenges we enter into a culture of solutions without blame. I also believe that we often, if not usually, overlook one of our biggest assets - the diversity that makes up our communities.
As an example, in one of my graduate classes we are studying different organizational and leadership styles. One of the concepts I have found intriguing is based on one of the Native American organizational models. The model has a group filling positions based on a particular needed leadership skills rather than having already defined positions that are filled with the “best people for the job”. A position might be needed for one particular situation but not for another situation. The agency tries to adjust to the change in needs but the person who is filling the position may not have the needed skills for the new needs. Moving people in an out of positions based on the current hierarchical structure is of course very awkward. But if a group agrees to start with the understanding that decisions will be based on needs rather than structure it does become possible and the appropriate changes can occur with greater flexibility and responsiveness.
As I complete my studies and move back into agencies in my community my focus is to build strength, safety, opportunity, and flexibility for all members of the community through community organizing. I see my role as creating opportunities for the natural leaders from the various communities to be heard by the larger community. Change in the culture starts at the local level. One example of a community organizers response to a community need could be the following: We don’t have enough money to create a mental health program for treating people with a schizophrenic diagnosis. Maybe what would work is an “adopt-a-schizophrenic” program. A program where retired individuals with spare room in their house take in one mental health client and form a relationship that is supportive and healing to the person’s recovery from schizophrenia.
I believe I am not alone and my and other people’s ideas can flourish and respond to the needs of each and every community if we allow ourselves to see what we would like rather than bemoan and feel victims to what we don’t like. A shift in our thinking is called for and the results will astound us.