So 3 hectic months have passed since my last posting where I was examining the idea of Complex Interventions and things have certainly moved on!
What became clear from my preliminary dabbles in the literature on Community Empowerment; Complex Interventions and Economic Evaluations was the overwhelming need to qualify what exactly I was searching for in a community to determine if they were 'empowered' or not. Whilst this remained vague and undetermined, chances of the project moving forward would be slim, resulting in an unstructured and mind-boggling mess of a project. Some consensus as to what the attributes of empowerment are needed to be reached. Even an economics newcomer such as myslef understands that known quantities are preferable to vague ones when attempting to conduct any sort of evaluation.
What does the Scottish Government envisage and how does this differ from work previously done in the academic field? Are there ideas of empowerment or power shifts in a community from other academic fields that could be applicable? My list of questions seemed endless. Through conducting a systematic search of literature it was hoped that some answers would be found. However, this was a multi-disciplinary search as no one individual field appeared to fully satisfy the full breadth of what I was hoping to cover. Acknowledging that Community Empowerment could potentially be addressed by numerous fields of academic interest meant my database search looked at databases which specialised in colleating work on the following topics:
An additional concern arose when I tried to chose appropriate search terms. It must be noted here that this search was intended to be broad as it was felt that to specify so early on in the project could potentially limit the study's outcomes. Through gaining an initial understanding of the many contexts of community empowerment, it is possible that a more appropriate focus may be found, one that draws on the work from numerous backgrounds and builds upon work already done rather than merely satisfying a small niche. Aiming big!!
Terms previously mentioned in work on the theory of empowerment such as those by Laverack (2006) combined with visions described in UK policy documentation provided the premise for the search terms I would use in my literature search. For example, community owned; community capacity and personal empowerment.
Wading through literature both relevant and irrelevant has led to my current state of affaires - making sense of the ideas and theories and decifering how/if they relate to my work. Even from the initial stages of this process, a wealth of information has already been brought to my attention. Work centering around the idea of personal empowerment within self-help groups utilising a personal empowerment likert scale as individuals are asked to judge their own feelings of security and power both within their immediate circumstances and the wider surroundings (Johnson, Worell et al; 2005) - could such a scale identify an intrinstic link between how ones personal feelings affect their outlook and ability to partake within their community? Is security and control over housing and input into the decisions taken by the local housing association important to all residents? Or does this point to a larger deficientcy- they want control over these decisions because they are consulted on so few other factors? Is a power shift from government to local people necessary or is empowerment a grassroots activity that can only be facilited and built from within? Power, a finite resource? These are but a few of the questions and queries that I am starting to address through my reading of articles/project documents. Combined with my work on models of empowerment suggested by the likes of Worell (2003) and other psychological wellbeing scales and measurement instruments currently in use (EQ-5D, SF-6D etc), I am hoping to grasp what we can quantify and pinpoint some ACTUAL ATTRIBUTES OF EMPOWERMENT. Fingers crossed it makes for some interesting future reading!!
What became clear from my preliminary dabbles in the literature on Community Empowerment; Complex Interventions and Economic Evaluations was the overwhelming need to qualify what exactly I was searching for in a community to determine if they were 'empowered' or not. Whilst this remained vague and undetermined, chances of the project moving forward would be slim, resulting in an unstructured and mind-boggling mess of a project. Some consensus as to what the attributes of empowerment are needed to be reached. Even an economics newcomer such as myslef understands that known quantities are preferable to vague ones when attempting to conduct any sort of evaluation.
What does the Scottish Government envisage and how does this differ from work previously done in the academic field? Are there ideas of empowerment or power shifts in a community from other academic fields that could be applicable? My list of questions seemed endless. Through conducting a systematic search of literature it was hoped that some answers would be found. However, this was a multi-disciplinary search as no one individual field appeared to fully satisfy the full breadth of what I was hoping to cover. Acknowledging that Community Empowerment could potentially be addressed by numerous fields of academic interest meant my database search looked at databases which specialised in colleating work on the following topics:
Economic and Social History; Economics; Geographical and Earth Sciences (referring to human geography); life sciences; medicine; nursing and health care; psychology; public policy; sociology and urban studies.
Terms previously mentioned in work on the theory of empowerment such as those by Laverack (2006) combined with visions described in UK policy documentation provided the premise for the search terms I would use in my literature search. For example, community owned; community capacity and personal empowerment.
Wading through literature both relevant and irrelevant has led to my current state of affaires - making sense of the ideas and theories and decifering how/if they relate to my work. Even from the initial stages of this process, a wealth of information has already been brought to my attention. Work centering around the idea of personal empowerment within self-help groups utilising a personal empowerment likert scale as individuals are asked to judge their own feelings of security and power both within their immediate circumstances and the wider surroundings (Johnson, Worell et al; 2005) - could such a scale identify an intrinstic link between how ones personal feelings affect their outlook and ability to partake within their community? Is security and control over housing and input into the decisions taken by the local housing association important to all residents? Or does this point to a larger deficientcy- they want control over these decisions because they are consulted on so few other factors? Is a power shift from government to local people necessary or is empowerment a grassroots activity that can only be facilited and built from within? Power, a finite resource? These are but a few of the questions and queries that I am starting to address through my reading of articles/project documents. Combined with my work on models of empowerment suggested by the likes of Worell (2003) and other psychological wellbeing scales and measurement instruments currently in use (EQ-5D, SF-6D etc), I am hoping to grasp what we can quantify and pinpoint some ACTUAL ATTRIBUTES OF EMPOWERMENT. Fingers crossed it makes for some interesting future reading!!
