Common Ground is a project bringing together community development practitioners from Northern Ireland and Scotland, supported by the Connect Fund in Northern Ireland.  

The project is led and co-ordinated by the Community Development and Health Network (NI) and Community Health Exchange (Scotland).

Community development has historically played a vital role in working alongside communities to drive social change and both CDHN and CHEX have a long tradition of supporting and promoting these approaches in tackling health inequalities.

This project was born from the joint recognition through dialogue between CDHN and CHEX that whilst the policy landscape in both Northern Ireland and Scotland, on the surface, appears to be supportive of these approaches, this is not reflected in the everyday experiences of our network members and the communities experiencing the harsh realities of the impacts of poverty and health inequalities.    

Eroding instead of engaging

Decisions continue to be resource driven, acute services prioritised and we see and experience a disinvestment of time, people, education, learning, training, resource and finance in long term, upstream, community development approaches.  Communities report feeling left behind, their views and experience not valued and increasingly disinclined to engage with institutions who do not appear to listen to them, engage with them or act on their priorities on their terms.  

Through our dialogue we have identified a shared experience that our language and elements of community development practice have been adopted and appropriated by public sector bodies, governments and practitioners and leaders in other sectors.  We have witnessed elements of community development practice being undertaken without adequate time or resource or the application of the values and principles of equity, self-determination, trust and solidarity that underpin effective and skilled community development practice.  

Where this happens, on a practical level these processes fail to provide adequately informed insight for the improvement processes, they seek to support or problems they seek to address.  But in addition, they run the risk of leading to further damage and harm for the individuals and communities involved and erode rather than build trust.  

Reclaiming ground

Common Ground seeks to explicitly reclaim and reimagine, for our current context, community development language, values, skills and practices in our language and on our terms.  We aim to shape and influence how community development is understood, supported and implemented by our networks and key partners to maximise the opportunities for communities who live with the day-to-day reality of poverty and the impacts of health inequalities to be able to participate equally in shaping meaningful solutions.   

A key element of the programme has been the opportunity to participate in community-led activities and visit community development projects in Belfast and Glasgow.  Shankhill Women’s Centre and Women’s Tec Centre in Belfast enabled us to participate in practical, hands on activities and young people from Glasgow and the Glasgow Life youth team led a range of activities from the Health Issues in the community programme enabling us to explore the wider social determinants of health.

 Our visit to GalGael

But for all the participants the single most powerful and transformative element of the exchange was the visit to GalGael, in Glasgow. Central to GalGael’s work is learning how to create and practice healthy community – community that is good for individuals and society as a whole.  

GalGael are a community, crafted by many people who take responsibility, articulate concerns and find common purpose.  

The visit to GalGael crystalised for many participants what has been so central and transformational to this opportunity of shared learning.  This is what stood out for us about our visit to GalGael and its impact on us as community workers:

• Reconnecting with purpose and passion for community development

• Authenticity and being grounded in real community need

• Challenging risk-averse culture and fostering positive risk taking

• Solidarity, not charity

• The importance of human connection

• Lasting emotional impact, a catalyst for personal and organisational change

• Reigniting a sense of agency, courage, challenge and activism

Transforming us all

Community development can and should be transformational.  But not just for the individuals and communities we seek to work alongside in solidarity.  When it works well community development practice can be equally transformational, personally and professionally, for us as practitioners. 

For me, and for our group, the Common Ground programme has been a transformational opportunity to reconnect with why I became a community worker in the first place.  

An opportunity to rest, reflect, take stock, connect and rediscover our own community.  

The Common Ground programme has been a first step in an ambitious endeavour to work together to articulate the unique contribution community development can and does make to tackling health inequalities. To create opportunities to work towards a future where community development is truly understood, valued, supported, resourced and rooted and embedded in communities, organisations and institutions throughout Northern Ireland and Scotland.  

If you would like to find out more about the Common Ground programme, you can email Sarah and have a chat.