Tapping Community Experience

Gathering Community Stories

Communities for a Lifetime

Philip B. Stafford, Ph.D. Director, Center on Aging & Community, Indiana Institute on Disability and Community

“Participation… provides a collaborative process by which community inhabitants reach

common goals, engage in collective decisions, and create places, and these places, in turn, serve as

material expressions of their collective efforts.”

Feldman, Roberta M. & Westphal, Lynne M. 2000. Sustaining human settlement: A challenge for the new millennium. Great Britain: Urban International Press.

Why participation?

• Counter decline in civic engagement.

• Broaden accountability.• People need to know fully the

process and how they fit in. • Public “input” meetings

alone are unsatisfactory.

Why participation?

• Diverse public suggests diverse modes of learning & interpretation.

• The people need tools to be on an equal plane with holders of power.

• Builds the democracy.• Help frame issues.

Criteria for selecting techniques:

• What is your desired outcome? • What kind of product do you need?• How much time do you have?• What will it cost?• How diverse is the group of

participants you hope to attract?

•How many participants do you want to include?

•Will you use experts/paid facilitators?

•Is the technique adaptable for diverse participants?

•What kind of engagement will be expected of participants?

Criteria for selecting techniques:

Potential Outcomes

• Understanding the daily experiences & lifeworld of target groups.

• For understanding the impact of programs and services on the daily lives of those for whom such services are intended.

• For discovering and revealing to a wider audience the needs, skills, talents and assets of individuals and groups who might otherwise be invisible to mainstream public and persons in power.

Potential Outcomes

• For gathering and organizing diverse individuals and groups into processes designed to create a shared vision of a better future.

• For simply helping a community learn about itself.

Who knows

about the issue?

Who cares about it?

Who can do something about it?

Stakeholders

Community

Change

Participation Toolkit Focus Groups

CharrettesMapmaking

Guided Visualization

Walk around the block

Writing Workshops

Surveys

Cartooning

GraffitiWall

Visual Arts

Oral history

Adult Day Center Collage Project

“You don’t have to do anything

special on a porch. You

can do what we did…talked.That’s

enough!”

Bertha DeBoer,age

100

Waldron Center Mural Project - Graffiti Wall

“Experiencing Place” Creative Writing Workshops

“And there are lots of old tombstonesthat have fallen over

so I pick them up and brush them off with my hand.”

, Hillary Jane Foreman-HunterBinford Elementary

Experiencing Place Authors

From data to information/knowledge

• “We’d buy half a loaf of bread if somebody offered it to us.”

• “When I cross a busy street I start to limp so cars will pay attention.”

• My home?... It’s “my wife, my kitchen with big bay window, history with children at home, the smell of cut grass.”

• “I put my empty water jugs on the porch rail when I see the neighbors come home.”

• “I can just walk across the street (to the community center)… I have a choice. When I get to the steps, if I feel I am too tired, I may walk around and…take the elevator.”

From Information to Knowledge

• Home as a repository of meaning• Home as a financial cushion• Home as a power base• Home as an aesthetic, reflection of

self• Home as a practical support• Home as a node in a social network

LearningLearning

The intangibles matter

MovementMovement

BeautyBeauty

Laughter

MemoryMemoryChoice

Tapping Community ExperienceGathering Community Stories

www.lifetimecommunities.orghttp://www.iidc.indiana.edu/index.php?pageId=31

Philip B. Stafford, Ph.D.Director, Center on Aging and CommunityIndiana Institute on Disability and CommunityIndiana University2853 East Tenth, Bloomington, IN 47408812-855-2163staffor@indiana.edu