Community Learning Development Resource 601 – 02
CAPACITY BUILDING WORK – CHALLENGES FOR WORKERS
SUMMARY
There are a number of challenges facing any worker seeking to engage in individual and community capacity building within community work.
- Capacity building is a universal component in work, which seeks to engage people in learning to make changes in their lives. In relation to working with adults, learning is part of the provision and services of a wide variety of agencies and organisations active in communities. Yet capacity building may not be a high profile theme in education and training, or community development work.
- Capacity building is not a universally understood concept and working with the links between learning, individual capacity building, community capacity building and regeneration, may not be part of common practice.
- Workers need to adopt an action research approach to capacity building work, in order to test out, confirm and promote the best practice, where little may be described and disseminated.
- Workers need to be reflective practitioners, skilled in recording, reflection and review. They need to be both seekers and disseminators of wisdom and truth, in relation to their capacity building work. – learning from their experiences.
- Workers must be prepared to seek opportunities for sharing work experiences to learn about capacity building practice. They may find themselves in work arenas where training and development activities may be driven by organisational and administrative concerns, responding to funding and accountability agendas.
- Capacity building workers should seek supportive work relationships with other workers through networking, collaboration and partnership and organise opportunities for sharing training and development issues and solutions.