Getting Outside my Comfort Zone with CDLI and Community Development
By Carly Cole
Many peoples first thoughts when they think of social workers are the stressed out child welfare workers working from a depressing, florescent lit office. While some social workers do indeed work in that area many of us hold positions vastly different than what is portrayed in mass media. Social workers work in schools, hospitals, senior care centres, in research labs, in government and in community development!
My name is Carly and I spent Spring/Summer 2022 as a social work practicum student with CDLI doing and supporting community development work. My experience leading up to my placement has thus far been in a more front-line role in a crisis shelter so I was seeking to dive head first into the community level to learn new skills and get outside of my comfort zone.
Community development is one of those things where we think we know what it is, but when asked to explain it, it can prove to be very challenging. I was that person. I thought community development was people who organized neighbour events and wrote letters to the local government relating to equity for citizens and social justice causes. What I have learned in my time with CDLI, is that Community Development is vast, and those working in it do a lot more than just organize events and write letters. I would like to share 4 things I didn’t know about Community Development.
1. Community development work is driven by citizens
The goal is work alongside those who know the community best on goals that community members view as most important. CD workers should never have an attitude that relies on their own opinion or what the research says a community needs. CD workers need to rely on the lived experience and expertise of folks living in the community.
2. Community development is all about communication
Meet people. Creating spaces where conversation is the goal. Seek to learn about others and their gifts and experiences. A key ingredient in successful community development work is knowing how to get people together and talking in an inviting and generative way.
3. It’s grassroots
Door knocking anyone? A lot of community development work starts very small. It can be getting to know your neighbours or simply walking around your neighbourhood to examine what is good!
4. A diverse array of disciplines work in community development
Community development starts first with community. This means that anyone can get involved and contribute to this work! People with all sorts of lived experience and various work and educational backgrounds can work in community development.
My experience at CDLI really allowed me to focus in on my own anti-racism and decolonizing practices along with gaining so much understanding of community level work. CDLI utilizes a concept called brave spaces. Brave spaces are inclusive and supportive of having challenging conversations, accountability and having conversation where differences are acknowledged and recognized. As part of my onboarding I was asked to engage with various articles, workbooks and other media that would aid in my understanding of white supremacy and decolonization. Not only being tasked with this helped my knowledge but being given the time and space to really engage with and digest some of this content.
A major part of my time with CDLI was working on their annual Mini Summit for community development practitioners. Though this process I was able to meet so many amazing people working in community and learn all about all of the different areas of this work! I was especially excited to be involved in planning a fully online event, which in 2022 is a great skill to have! From the technology, volunteer recruitment, facilitation development and making sure all the amazing session hosts had what they needed there were a lot of components to keep organized and CDLI was able to supply me with the mentorship and tools I needed to be successful at it. If you happened to miss the Mini Summit you can watch all of the sessions from the event and check out the collective learning harvest of the event anytime on the CDLI website.
I think my most significant learning from my time with CDLI relates to my view on the charity model. Mutual aid is a concept I learned about in university, but CDLI taught me the concept is much larger than just community pantries and little free libraries. This video on the concept really opened my eyes to how mutual aid is built on trust, anti-oppressive practices and just general human kindness towards each other. There are a lot of differences between this and the charity model that my time at CDLI illuminated for me. One of the mottos of mutual aid is “today me, tomorrow you” meaning that everyone can benefit from mutual aid depending on the day. It is not hierarchal and does not view people who utilize mutual aid as “deserving”. It is simply working together as community to make sure we all have what we need. That is a practice I can really get behind.
I hope to take this newfound experience into my own community and create some of my own mutual aid projects, advocate for better access to food and continue forming my decolonization practices. Thank you Amanda, Tyson and CDLI for an amazing experience!