In HADM 315: Health and Community Development, you are invited to engage in the content and discussions with online peers and community partners so that you will experience theory and practice combined as praxis. You will learn about concepts of community, social determinants of health, and the use of participatory action research methods in the application and integration of community development (CD) principles to build community capacity.
We will provide you with tools to facilitate community organizing and participatory action (PA) as a means of bringing people together to address problematic social conditions. As a purposeful collective effort, PA requires sound analytical, political, and interactional skills. An important aspect of those skills for community facilitators involves a continuous pattern of systematic planning, doing, reflecting again (theorizing), and acting strategically to build a group or community that can achieve its aims.
Although these concepts are addressed in the course, we assume learners come with some familiarity of such relevant skills and knowledge as: the nature of organizations, service delivery networks, community structures and dynamics, power structure and dynamics, empowerment, and advocacy. Through learning from case studies presented by community partners and the values they express, you will have opportunities to develop the skills and competencies required of effective community development practitioners, and increase your capacity to create sustainable transformative change. Therefore, this course is relevant to direct practice for and with any community or group, but it is particularly relevant for advocacy and capacity building for disempowered groups in society.
Outline
Health Administration 315: Health and Community Development comprises eight units, which are further divided into segments, as outlined below.
Unit One: Introduction to Health and Community Development
Segment 1: Guiding Your Learning Journey – As the Eagle Flies Segment 2: Case Study: You just blink and it can happen: A study of women’s homelessness north of 60 Segment 3: Professionalization, Service Delivery, and Community Development Segment 4: Where Theory Meets Practice
Unit Two: What is Community Development?
Segment 1: What is Community? Segment 2: Systems Thinking Applied to Community Development Segment 3: What is the "Development" in Community Development?
Unit Three: Mapping Community Development
Segment 1: Concepts and Tools Used In Community Development Segment 2: The Medicine Wheel as a Situation Mapping Tool Segment 3: The Determinants Model and Problem Tree Analysis
Unit Four: How Change Happens
Segment 1: Three Kinds of Change Problems Segment 2: Why Community Development is Always about Change Segment 3: Routine Change versus Transformation
Unit Five: Doing Things Right – Best Practices and Principles to Guide Development Action (Part I, Principles 1 – 8) Segment 1: Introduction to the Principles of Community Development
Human beings can transform their world
Development comes from within
Healing is a necessary part of development
Justice
No vision, no development
Development processes must be rooted in the culture of the people
Interconnectedness: A holistic approach
The hurt of one is the hurt of all; the honour of one is the honour of all
Unit Six: Doing Things Right – More Best Practices and Principles to Guide Development Action (Part II, Principles 9 – 17) Segment 1: Introduction to More Principles of Community Development
Unity
Participation
Spirit
Morals and ethics
Learning
Sustainability
Move to the positive
Be the change you want to see
Power and power dynamics in the community must be acknowledged and analysed
Unit Seven: Are you an Effective Community Development Facilitator?
Segment 1: Roles and Personal Characteristics of Effective Community Development Workers Segment 2: Strategies for Community Development Work Segment 3: Capacity Building as the Foundation of Community Development Work Segment 4: Assessing Community Capacity Segment 5: Capacity Building Strategies and Tools
Unit Eight: Community Development Practice
Segment 1: Participation Segment 2: Barriers to Participation Produce Inauthentic Participation Segment 3: Participatory Action Research Segment 4: Components and Core Competencies to Facilitate Sustained Participatory Action
Evaluation
To receive credit for HADM 315, you must complete all assessments and achieve a course composite grade of at least D (50 percent). The weighting of the composite grade is as follows:
Activity
Weight
Assignment 1: Defining and Describing Community
20%
Assignment 2: Community Assessment
30%
Assignment 3: Developing and Implementing an Action Plan
35%
Participation
15%
Total
100%
To learn more about assignments and examinations, please refer to Athabasca University’s online Calendar.
Materials
This course either does not have a course package or the textbooks are open-source material and available to students at no cost. This course has a Course Administration and Technology Fee, but students are not charged the Course Materials Fee.
Bopp, M., & Bopp, J. (2011). Recreating the world: A practical guide to building sustainable communities (3rd ed.). Calgary, AB: Four Worlds Press. (Online) (Online)
Alternate Delivery Option (OERu*)
HADM315:Health and Community Development (Revision4), is now offering a version of this course in Open Courseware format. This means that anyone interested in learning more about health and community development, but not desiring university credits for their learning, has free access to audit the course as a “guest” without tutor support or assignment submissions.”
*The OERu is an independent, not-for-profit network that offers free online university courses for students worldwide using Open Educational Resources (OER)
Athabasca University reserves the right to amend course outlines occasionally and without notice. Courses offered by other delivery methods may vary from their individualized study counterparts.