Promoting Strengths, Prevention, Empowerment and

Community Change (SPEC) principles in community based

practice

Scot Evans Associate Professor, Department of Educational & Psychological

Studies Director, Undergraduate Program in Human and Social Development

!s.evans4@miami.edu @evanssd

the human service organization becomes an

arena in which different moral values compete for dominance

Hasenfeld, 2010

3

community-based human service organizations

often lack frameworks to help guide their thinking and action (Delpeche et. al., 2003).

Praxis

S! P! E! C

Critical practice can be framed by four principles:!

Strengths-based - Acknowledging and appreciating individual and community strengths helps people thrive, but focusing on deficits diminishes their dignity.!

Prevention - Preventing ill health and social and psychological problems is better than curing people who already suffer.!

Empowerment - Well-being requires power, control, voice and choice.!

Community Change - We cannot eliminate problems one person at a time. We must change conditions that lead to problems in the first place.

Prilleltensky, I. (2005), Evans, Hanlin, & Prilleltensky, (2007)www.specway.org

Changing how we work

Deficits

Reactive

Alienating

Individuals

Strengths

Proactive

Empowering

Communities & Systems

strengthsSPEC's strength-based orientation identifies and builds

upon individual and community assets, resilience, and ability to thrive in difficult situations.

preventiona lesson from Alaska

We don’t prevent oil spills by scrubbing rocks!

As it turns out, the bridge leading

across the river upstream has a

hole through which people are

falling.

www.thinkupstream.net/

empowermentto increase the

power of individuals,

groups, and entire

communities

Muhammad Yunus - Grameen Bank

Over time, their skills needed to achieve autonomy have atrophied due to years of exclusion, marginalization

and neglect.

Evans, S.D. (2012). Community leadership. Global Journal of Community Psychology Practice, 3(3), 1-6.!Murphy, J. W. (2010). Leadership in community- based development. Unpublished manuscript, University of Miami, Miami, FL.

Communities have been conditioned to look to outsiders and experts for help.

Unfortunately, this belief can get propagated throughout communities so that residents become unable to see

their own assets and power.

This is exacerbated by the fact that in many current forms of community development, leadership is thought to best originate "from above" because a belief that local citizens

lack the necessary talents or ambition.

powerem ment

powercreating the conditions and opportunities for

community members to see their strengths, build capabilities, and experience power

community change

“No mass disorder, afflicting humankind,

has ever been eliminated, or brought

under control, by treating the affected

individual”!

“social service agencies should also engage in

social justice organizing or must be

accountable to social movements if they are to further, rather than impede, social justice.”

(Smith, 2007)

Action Research

People and organizations benefit from a reflective process

that creates the learning context through which members negotiate their different values, attitudes and perceptions.

Suárez-Herrera, Springett, & Kagan (2009).

SPEC Check Example:))Early)Educa/on)Pre3school)Program

“SPEC-iness”68%

62%

38%

17%

D

R

A

I

(N)

ReferencesDelpeche, H., Jabbar-Bey, R., Sherif, B., Taliafero, J., & Wilder, M. (2003). Community Development and Family Support: Forging a practical nexus to strengthen families and communities. Newark, DE: Center for Community Research and Services.!

Evans, S.D. (2012). Community leadership. Global Journal of Community Psychology Practice, 3(3), 1-6.!

Evans, S. D., Prilleltensky, O., McKenzie, A., Prilleltensky, I., & Nogueras, D, Huggins, C. & Mescia, N. (2011). Promoting Strengths, Prevention, Empowerment, and Community Change Through Organizational Development: Lessons for Research, Theory and Practice. Journal of Prevention and Intervention in the Community, 39(1), 50-64. !

Evans, S. D., Hanlin, C. E., & Prilleltensky, I. (2007). Blending ameliorative and transformative approaches in human service organizations: A case study. Journal of Community Psychology, 35(3), 329-346.!

Hasenfeld, Y. (2010). “The Attributes of Human Service Organizations”, Ch. 2, pp. 9-32 in Y. Hasenfeld (Ed.). Human Services As Complex Organizations. Sage Publications: Thousand Oaks California. !

Murphy, J. W. (2010). Leadership in community- based development. Unpublished manuscript, University of Miami, Miami, FL.!

Prilleltensky, I. (2005). Promoting well-being: Time for a paradigm shift in health and human services. Scandanavian Journal of Public Health, 1-8.!

Smith, A. (2007). Introduction: The Revolution will not be Funded. In INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex (pp. 1–18). Cambridge, MA: South End Press.!

Suárez-Herrera, J. C., Springett, J., & Kagan, C. (2009). Critical connections between participatory evaluation, organizational learning and intentional change in pluralistic organizations. Evaluation, 15 (3), 321 -342.!

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