A Child as a Friend, Teacher, and Community Member These snapshots of the history of “help” in the United States offer an opportunity to ask wiser questions about what we must solve to achieve a goal of well-being for children and families. Is the challenge getting better at mitigating the costs of accepting and living with inequality or committing to ending structural inequality? This decision raises a question: in which institutions do we want to sustain and invest? Government agencies focused on policing the predictable consequences of inequality and disadvantage or institutions that exist to root out inequality and invest in people as the primary purpose of our democracy rather than the products that build the wealth, health, power, and privilege for a relative few? Cormac Russell, the author of Rekindling Democracy 8 and prominent leader of Asset- Based Community Development 9 , examines the positioning of ‘help’ and delivery of ‘needs and services’ in four simple prepositions: to, for, with, and by. 10 The ‘to’ view acknowledges help done to people without welcoming their expertise on their own good life. 11,12 The community, family, or individual is on the receiving end, with decisions and strategies shaped by experts in medical institutions, hospitals, and doctors' offices. The argument is not that those individuals don't have a place in decision-making. Instead, when system- defined experts do things to others, those others are defined as objects rather than the authors and architects of their own lives and communities. When the industry-imposed remedy fails, it is considered a failure of the individual, family, or community rather than the institution. This narrative begets the initial design. It also ignores the inherent strength, value, and potential of help from the individual, family, or community that has had no place in our current social settlement. By design, it fails to ask the question and ignores the family and community experience and capabilities for facing the challenges that most affect their lives. 13 We must learn that a person or family's life doesn't happen in an expert's office but in the relationships and communities that welcome people and the roles they can fill with their gifts, capabilities, and wisdom by experience.
The reference to the current ‘helping’ system's hallmarks may seem familiar: 1. The focus is binary on the individual and the system, without community, tribe, or family. 2. Community is either forgotten or an afterthought. 3. It is often considered something to extract from when the community is considered. 4. Community assets are not viewed as resources to be discovered, connected, and mobilized. 14 The charity model is ‘help’ provide’ ‘for’ people, with needs (needs are defined as things people do not have) the value and power of people defined solely by the things they are assessed as not having. 15 Both prepositions support the historical framing of social care: systems organized around needs and services that mitigate, manage, and contain problems. Specific neighborhoods and institutions are dumping grounds for people viewed as objects to receive help defined by someone else. Asset-Based Community Development ______________ 8 Russell, Cormac, et al. Rekindling Democracy a Professional's Guide to Working in Citizen Space . Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2020. 9 Nurture Development, Ltd., “Asset Based Community Development (ABCD).” Nurture Development , 30 Nov. 2016, https://www.nurturedevelopment.org/asset- based-community-development/. 10 Russell, Cormac. “Four Modes of Change: To, for, with, By.” Hindsight, Eurocontrol , 4 Apr. 2019, 11 Russell, Cormac. “We Don’t Have a Health Problem We Have a Village Problem.” We Don't Have a Health Problem, We Have a Village Problem , Nurture Development, 2020, https://www.nurturedevelopment.org/wp-content/ uploads/2018/09/we-dont-have-a-health-problem- we-have-a-village-problem8259.pdf. 12 Cormac Russell, (2020) Community Medicine, Vol. 1, Chapter 1, pp. 1-12. 13 TEDxTalks. “Sustainable Community Development: From What's Wrong to What's Strong | Cormac Russell | TEDxExeter.” YouTube , YouTube, 16 May 2016, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5xR4QB1ADw. 14 Russell, Cormac. "We Don't Have a Health Problem. We Have a Village Problem." We Don't Have a Health Problem. We Have a Village Problem , Nurture Development, 2020, https://www.nurturedevelopment.org/wp-content/ uploads/2018/09/we-dont-have-a-health-problem- we-have-a-village-problem8259.pdf. 15 TEDxTalks. “Sustainable Community Development: From What's Wrong to What's Strong | Cormac Russell | TEDxExeter.” YouTube , YouTube, 16 May 2016, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5xR4QB1ADw.
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