ASSET-BASED COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT

Community assets are at the heart of strengths-based practice as they can provide a wealth of relevant supports and opportunities for people and their families. Whilst these can be centred around a geographic area, communities are often based around many other interests, histories or identities. Resources are not allocated fairly between communities and it is often the more deprived communities which have less forms of capital available to them. Social work has a tradition of community activity, but this has been marginalised in recent years due to more individual, care management-based processes. Asset-based community development (ABCD) originated in the USA and has now been applied widely in the UK. It is deliberately flexible to enable the starting point and aspirations of a community to shape its focus and process, and is seen as an on-going endeavour which does not have a defined endpoint as such. ABCD practitioners draw upon related tools to encourage communities and other stakeholders to see their challenges and assets in new ways.