Facilitated by

1
Building Belonging Celebrating Inclusive
Communities
Facilitated by Ted Smeaton Inspiring Communities
Australia
2

• GIFTS OF THE HEAD (Things I know something about
  and would enjoy talking about with others, e.g.,
  art, history, movies, birds).
• GIFTS OF THE HANDS (Things or skills I know how
  to do and would like to share with others, e.g.,
  carpentry, sports, gardening, cooking).
• GIFTS OF THE HEART (Things I care deeply about,
  e.g., protection of the environment, civic life,
  children).

3
Key ABCD ideas

• Meaningful and lasting community change always
  originates from within, and local residents in
  that community are the best experts on how to
  activate that change.

4

• The wisdom of the community always exceeds the
  knowledge of the experts
• Building and nourishing relationships is at the
  core of building healthy and inclusive
  communities

5

• Communities have never been built by dwelling on
  their deficiencies. Focus on the resources,
  capacities, strengths and aspirations of a
  community and its residents, instead of dwelling
  on the needs, deficiencies and problems.

6

• Every single person has capacities, abilities,
  gifts and ideas, and living a good life depends
  on whether those capacities can be used,
  abilities expressed, gifts given and ideas
  shared.

7
The Graniators
8

• The strength of a community is directly
  proportional to the level that the diversity of
  its residents desire, and are able to contribute
  their abilities and assets to the wellbeing of
  their community.

9
The Audacity of hope
10
(No Transcript)
11
(No Transcript)
12
ACAS Assessment

13
(No Transcript)
14
(No Transcript)
15
New Prospect Baptist Church

• Skills
• Sometimes we have talents that weve acquired in
  everyday life such as cooking and fixing things.
• What do you enjoy doing?
• If you could start a business, what would it be?
• What do you like to do that people would pay you
  to do?
• Have you ever made anything? Have you ever
  fixed anything?
• Dreams
• Before you go, I want to take a minute and hear
  about your dreams -these goals you hope to
  accomplish
• What are your dreams?
• If you could snap your fingers and be doing
  anything, what would it be?
• Closing
• First, Id like to thank you. Were talking to
  as many people as we can and what wed like to do
  is begin a Wall of Fame here in the Soup Kitchen
  highlighting the gifts, skills and dreams of as
  many people as possible. The ultimate goal is to
  find a way to use those gifts in rebuilding the
  community.
• Before you go, can I get your full name? Address?
  Age?

Page 29
16
Releasing Individual Capacities Big Dipper
Community Circle

• Capacity Inventory
• Hello, Im with Big Dipper Community Circle.
  Were talking to everyone in Kotzebue about their
  skills and interests - what they already know
  and new things theyd like to do or learn. We
  want to make it easier for people to find others
  with similar interests and concerns - also
  connections for interesting experience trying out
  new things or working with others to help each
  other or help the community. May I ask you some
  questions about what youve done, what you might
  like to learn or do?
• Part I - Skills Information
• Im going to read you a list of skills. Its a
  long list, so I hope youll stick with me. Ill
  read the list and you tell me whether you know it
  or can do it, could teach it to someone else or,
  if you dont have that skill, whether you would
  like to learn it.
• Were interested in all your skills and abilities
  - also in things youre interested in learning or
  doing. For now, thing about what youre learned
  by experience at home or with your family.
  Remember what youve learned at church, in the
  community, for other people - wherever. There
  may be things youve learned at work, too, either
  on your own job or watching others. As I read
  the list, you tell me which things you know,
  which things you would be able to teach others,
  and which things you would like to learn.
• Well start with some traditional Inupiaq skills
  and then go on to others.

17
Releasing Individual Capacities - Big Dipper
Community Circle (cont.)
18
Neighbourhood needs map
Page 20
19
Needs map

• We are deficient
• Our local relationships are damaged
• Most money comes into our community for programs
  often narrowly defined
• Money can get misdirected towards professional
  helpers, not residents
• We place focus on leaders who magnify
  deficiencies
• We reward failure and foster dependency on
  systems
• Our community has a poor self-image
• We experience hopelessness

Page 20
20

• Instead of asking whats wrong and how do we
  fix it, ask, what have we got, whats worked,
  and how do we get more of it.

21

• What we focus on becomes our reality. If we
  focus on what is wrong or what is missing, we
  tend to see everything through that filter or
  frame.

22
Types of assets

• 1.Talents, skills and passions of our people
• 2. Community groups and networks
• 3. Government and Non- Government agencies
• 4. Physical assets
• land
• property
• buildings
• equipment
• 5. Economic Assets
• productive work of individuals
• consumer spending power
• local business assets
• 6. Stories, heritage and local identity / values

Page 22
23
Driver assets

• Driver Assets
• What people care about
• Relationships

Page 22
24
Culture
Culture
Culture
Culture
Culture
Culture
Culture
Culture
Culture
Page 24
25
Three key steps to ABCD

• Discover the assets
• Joins the assets together
• Create opportunities for these assets to be
  productive and powerful together

Page 25
26
A Simple Personal Assets Map

• GIFTS OF THE HEAD (Things I know something about
  and would enjoy talking about with others, e.g.,
  art, history, movies, birds).
• GIFTS OF THE HANDS (Things or skills I know how
  to do and would like to share with others, e.g.,
  carpentry, sports, gardening, cooking).
• GIFTS OF THE HEART (Things I care deeply about,
  e.g., protection of the environment, civic life,
  children).

Page 26
27
A simple assets map
Individuals Gifts, Skills, Capacities, Knowledge
and Traits of Youth Older Adults Artists Welfare
Recipients People with Disabilities Students Paren
ts Entrepreneurs Activists Veterans
Physical Space Gardens Parks Playgrounds Parking
Lots Bike Paths Walking Paths Forests/Forest
Preserves Picnic Areas Campsites Fishing Spots
Local Economy For-Profit Businesses Consumer
Expenditures Merchants Chamber of
Commerce Business Associations Banks Credit
Unions Foundations Institutional-Purchasing Power
and Personnel Barer and Exchange CDCs Corporations
and Branches
Associations
Heritage Groups Hobby and Collectors Groups Mens
Groups Mentoring Groups Mutual Support
Groups Neighborhood Improvement Groups Political
Organizations Recreation Groups Religious
Groups Service Clubs Social Groups Union
Groups Veterans Groups Womens Groups Youth
Groups
Animal Care Groups Anti Crime Groups Block
Clubs Business Organizations Charitable
Groups Civic Events Groups Cultural
Groups Education Groups Elderly
Groups Environmental Groups Family Support Groups
Health Advocacy and Fitness Groups
Page 28
28
Capturing Local Relationships - library
29
Organisational Mapping

• Organisations we know
• Organisations we dont know
• What do they currently do?
• What have they talked about doing but have not
  yet done?
• What may they do if we ask them?

30

• The simplest and most powerful investment any
  member of a community or an organisation may make
  in terms of community building is to begin
  talking with other people as though the answers
  mattered
• (William Greider)

31
Questions for conversation at the dinner table,
pub, church or coffee shop

• What do you most value about your neighbourhood ?
• What two most important concerns do you have
  about your neighbourhood?
•  
• A time when you experienced something successful
  something you were
• proud of in the neighbourhood
• Would you like to come more involved in making
  the neighbourhood better? How?
• What are your skills interests and talents ?
• What would you like to learn?
• What would you like to teach ?

Page 35
32
Two ways of working

• Answer Question
• Need Want/care to act
• Services Mobilise assets
• Consumer Citizen

33

• Its not the years in your life that count,
• its the life in your years
• Abraham Lincoln

34
Less successful- More successful

• Start with an answer
• Recruit people to
• implement the answer
• Look for answers to the additional problem of
  lack of motivation

Start with a learning conversation Discover
what people care about, how they see the
situation and what they want to offer Mobilise
assets
35

If I were asked what to do about the level of
insecurity and anxiety in contemporary Australian
society, I wouldnt start with politics and I
wouldnt say too much about terrorism. Id
suggest, as the first step, that you invite the
neighbours over for a drink this weekend. Today
a drink, tomorrow a barbeque, pretty soon, a
community.   (Hugh Mackay)
36
Imagine

• Imagine an Australian community where older
  people are valued and included in community life,
  enabled to maintain health independence, are
  able to contribute their talents and wisdom,
  pursue their interests, nurture relationships,
  maintain their culture and spirituality and be in
  control of their future.
• Imagine if those who need support can receive
  it in a way that supports the above, and is
  provided with dignity and respect.

37

• - How would we bring this about?
• What is life-giving for older people?

Page 36
38

Page 37
39

Page 37
40

• Who are my role models that excite
• me about the wisdom and skills that I
• can develop as I grow older?

41
Community A place filled with care

• Care remains invisible unless you have
  conversations about what people care about
• People may not care about what you want them to
  care about
• Care must be discovered through relationships
  that are built on purpose
• Learning conversations are the way to build
  relationships that make care visible (Mike
  Green)

42

• There is no power for change like a community
  discovering what it cares about
• (Margaret Wheatley )

43
The power of two

• If one person spent one day having a conversation
  to two people about what they could create (12)
• If the next day, those two people each had a
  conversation with two different people (1222)
• And so forth
• Then in ten days, 2047 people would be having a
  conversation
• In 15 days, 65,535 people would be in
  conversation
• In 20 days, 21million people would be in a
  conversation

Page 38
44
A poem

• Ive come here to tell of a powerful thing,
• A thing as enchanting as flowers in spring.
• It tickles your mind and opens the door
• To stories and wonder, and oh, so much more!
• This thing leads the way to worlds still unknown
• And each time you meet one, youll find YOU have
  grown!
• What is this magical thing?? (Can you guess?)
• Are you starting to wonder? (I hope you say yes!)

45

• You are already holding a very big clue
• Whenever you say How? What? Why? When? Where?
  Who?
• This BIG things a QUESTION, a question thats
  tall
• (for the thing about questions is none need be
  small)
• Each one has a purpose, each springs from a place
• Of mystery in us thats quite hard to trace.
• And the magic discovered with practice, I find,
• Is strengthening questions that open the mind
• Asset-based questions inspiring and bold
• That stretch the world bigger just so it can hold
• The wonder created by what we have dared
• To hope and to ask and, with smiles, to have
  shared!
• Bliss W. Browne December 5, 2008

46
Building the bridge from client to citizen
People Community Gifts and Dreams
Contribution
47

• You find friends by making the sandwiches at the
  food pantry not by standing in line to get the
  sandwiches.
• (A community leader)

48
Where does the word client come from?

• The word client derives from words meaning
  "follower, retainer, and "listen, follow, obey"
  or "to incline or bend.
• The ground sense is of one who leans on another
  for protection. Clientele meant "relationship
  between dependent and patron. (1563)
  (from www.etymonline.com)

49
Citizenship

• Citizenship is defined as
• the status of a citizen with its attendant
  duties, rights and privileges.

50
Clienthood vs citizenship

• Older people do not aspire to be clients.
• They aspire to be people.
• Helen Q Kivnick,1988

51

• The deepest dream of ABCD is that more and more
  people can come to see truly that there is no
  one we dont need and that a community without a
  place for everyone is a community really with a
  place for no one.
• -Mike Green

52

• A leader is a dealer in hope
• Napolean

53

• Leaders dont create leaders
• they create
• more leaders
• Tom Peters

54
Everyday Leaders and Starting a connection point

• A leaders task is to open doors and windows
• John Gardiner

55

• If your actions inspire others to dream more,
  learn more and become more you are a leader
• (John Quincey Adams)

56

• Importance of Leadership its Development
• Given the task of rejuvenating a region and the
  choice of 50 million, or 2 million and 20
  committed local leaders, we would choose the
  smaller amount of money and the committed
  leaders.
•  
• (McKinsey and Company (1994) Lead Local Compete
  Global Unlocking the Growth of Australias
  Regions)

57

• "He that is good with a hammer tends to think
  everything is a nail.
• Abraham Maslow

58
Two pathways

• Needs Assets
• Services Connections
• Contributions
• Consumers Citizen
• Programs are the answer People are
  the answer

59
Page 51
60
But what am I going to do on Monday?
Page 52
61

Celebrating Inclusive Communities
Some thoughts for congregations about the links
between ABCD and the mission of local
congregations. So how is this done? What is that
your community doesnt know about you and you
dont know about your community? (How is the
grace or gift in you and your community masked
not fully known? This is the strengths question
who are you really, how are you really and
what is really going on? ) What is your part
in the very things that concern you? It is not
outsourcing the work to solve the problem It
is practicing the faith to help us dance with the
spirit Communities of wholeness curate
practices. How do I join with the World to make
a difference? Communities of wholeness enable
networks.
Page 64
62

Celebrating Inclusive Communities

• Questions for congregations
• What are the strengths that we have to contribute
  to this community and how can we further develop
  those strengths?
• What are the practices that we can engage in that
  will help to form and strengthen those
  connections, and to enable us to learn and
  reflect on our how our faith plays out in our
  lives?
• Who are the networks in our community with whom
  we could share ideas, pursue common goals, or
  exchange information?

Page 66
63

Celebrating Inclusive Communities

• For agencies or community groups
• What are some of the assets of our local churches
  that we have not yet considered?
• 2. How could we connect with those assets with
  the assets of older people we know who have the
  potential to become isolated in our community?

Page 68
64

Celebrating Inclusive Communities
SUMMARY-DOMAIN SCAN
Page 73
65

Celebrating Inclusive Communities

• DOMAIN GOALS

Page 74
66
Message of the day

• When people discover what they have they find
  power
• When people join together in new connections and
  relationships they build power
• When people become more productive together,
  they exercise their power to address problems and
  realise dreams
• (Mike Green)

67

• Ted Smeaton
• Telephone- 0417 402 669
• Email ted_at_inspiringcommunities.com
• www.inspiringcommunities.com

68

• Go to the people
• Live among them
• Learn from them
• Love them
• Start with what they know
• Build on what they have
• But of the best leaders when their task is done
• The people will remark
• We have it done it ourselves.
• (Lao Tze)