Author(s): Erik W. Carter, Jennifer L. Bumble
Published: 2018 in Journal of Disability Policy Studies
URL to article
Research Focus Area: Asset-based best practices for serving students with disabilities/students in special ed
Abstract:
The persistence of disappointing employment, educational, and community outcomes for youth and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) demands new and effective pathways for changing the post–high school landscape. This article presents “community conversations” as a promising approach for identifying community assets and opportunities, as well as spurring systemic change at the level of local communities. We describe this approach and its core components, review empirical studies of community conversations, and highlight the promise of this approach for informing policy and practice. We then provide an overview of this special issue and describe the policy and practice contexts within which included studies were carried out.
Research Question(s):
What are “community conversations” and how can this approach be used to identify as well as create employment opportunities for students with disabilities?
Methods:
Literature Review
Setting:
Community & Schools
Key Findings:
- Community conversation is asset-based approach for including diverse community stakeholders in addressing an issue of local importance. The approach provides a structured way of creating and prioritizing local solutions that align with a community’s culture, priorities, and available resources. The paper applies the approach to the lack of integrated employment for students with disabilities transitioning out of high school.
- Community conversations begin with a local planning team identifying the pressing issue they want to address and crafting a set of two to three questions to address the issue. Next, a planning team invites community members who can speak to the issue as well as their community’s assets. Before selecting community members, the team should define the scope of the community, ensure that stakeholders are present at the event and that community members will be able to add various forms of knowledge to the meeting (e.g knowledge of bureautic disability services in the community and knowledge of mutual aid projects).
- Meetings are about two hours long and follow a common format. The meeting will often open with a brief welcome from a local facilitator, a short presentation explaining the issue in relation to the community, a review of discussion questions, and an outline of the conversation process. Attendees will then participate in three separate rounds of small-group discussion at tables composed of around four to six people. Each round may last 15 to 20 min and addresses a single question. After each of these rounds, attendees are asked to share ideas, resources, or opportunities that could be drawn upon by the community, as well as respond to other group’s summaries. Various table hosts will take detailed notes throughout the event to capture the full range of possible ways in which the community might move forward on the issue.
Implications:
- Community conversations are a way to generate knowledge about an issue and a community’s assets as well as find solutions that are relevant to the community’s needs.
- Community conversations are often used at the beginning of a process rather than as a way to support an ongoing, existing process.
Limitations:
There are three limitations readers should consider regarding this paper.
- Community conversations are not the only way to approach engaging with community-level change efforts. Community conversations are one approach, which should be implemented with great consideration for local context and should be implemented strategically. For example, some of the knowledge generated at a community conversation event will be ineffective or stand in conflict with practices and hard expectations.
- Community conversations may be most effective at spurring change. However, this tool may be insufficient for sustaining ongoing movements. Therefore, the process of change should be considered before utilizing community conversations.
- While this approach has been shown to be effective, it is not entirely clear which elements or mechanism of this approach are effective. Therefore, communities should not see this approach as a rigid manual but rather a blueprint that can be adapted based on community context and expertise.