Publications from ODSW Social Insights: Letters by DSW (Vol 2) | Page 9

Fundamentals of Social Work
could include geography, shared interests, values, experiences, or traditions.
To some people it’s a feeling, to some people it’s relationships, to some
people it’s a place, to some people it’s an institution (CBC, 1994)4. And it
need not be a physical place as in the case of the online community.
One useful way to describe the community and its sectors is through a
technique known as mapping (Kretzmann et al. 1993)5. Each Social Service
Office in Singapore now maps the bounds of a community by identifying
primary, secondary, and potential community resources. The potential of
these resources is that they can be seen as assets that can be identified,
mobilised, and used to address issues of concern and bring about change.
Service mapping: What is helpful is a heatmap rather than a geographical
map to bring providers to the table. The aim is to help people to have
clarity about what they are doing and allowing them to weave it together
into meaningful results for the community. Questions that can facilitate this
include: Why are you providing the service? (And avoid saying that there is
a need.) Where are there gaps on the map (or service deserts)? And why are
they there? And what do the services have in common? Sometimes there
may be groups and individuals working in the same area but do not take
cognizance of the contributions of others as relevant or appropriate. So the
aim of such heatmaps is to facilitate agreement on outcomes and to pull
everyone in the same direction.
Again, from the systems perspective, another way to understand and
describe a community might involve exploring factors related to:
• People (socioeconomic characteristics and demographics, health status
and risk profiles, cultural and ethnic characteristics);
• Location (geographic boundaries);
• Connectors (shared values, interests, motivating forces); and
• Power relationships (communication patterns, formal and informal lines
of authority and influence, stake holder relationships, flow of resources).
(Adapted from VHA, 1993)6
Similarly, we can define a community from a broader sociological perspective
by describing the social and political networks that link individuals and
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Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). Ideas: community and its counterfeits [transcript].
Toronto (Canada): CBC RadioWorks; 1994 January.
Kretzmann JP, McKnight JL. (Center for Urban Affairs and Policy Research, Neighborhood
Innovations Network, Northwestern University) Building communities from the inside out: a
path toward finding and mobilizing a community’s assets. Chicago (IL): ACTA Publications;
1993.
Voluntary Hospitals of America, Inc. (VHA). C ommunity partnerships: taking charge of
change through partnership. Irving (TX): Voluntary Hospitals of America, Inc.; 1993.
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