1.3 Center power for community decisions in the community.
Power lies in who frames an issue, which involves naming the problem, identifying assets and solutions and setting goals. Community framing is profoundly different from defining problems and goals for people and communities and asking them for feedback on the intervention being considered. Communities that are predominantly white and more affluent expect to have significant input and control about local decisions influencing their communities, but this power has been shifted out of communities that are less wealthy and less white and given explicitly or tacitly to public systems. Shifting power back is essential.
Centering community in decision-making processes is different from traditional community engagement processes that may "check the box" but rarely produce transformative results.
For more on what it looks like to center community, download the resource below co-authored by the panelists from our December 2020 event "Centering Community: Shifting Power and Relationships."
Crowdsourcing What's Possible:
The principles and recommendations in this Blueprint are already being acted on by systems, organizations, communities and people across the nation. Do you have an example to share with us? Please share it!
Take me back to wellbeingblueprint.org.
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