Syllabus

INSTRUCTORS:

INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW:

As public health professionals come to recognize the underlying and fundamental determinants of health, we become more interested in the power of social capital and community factors in promoting health. Until fairly recently, the profession's focus has been on the proximate causes of morbidity and mortality (heart disease, cancer, stroke, etc.), rather than the fundamental issues that lead to those manifestations of poor health. These underlying factors include poverty, isolation, alienation, powerlessness, and other factors that are best addressed by social activism rather than medical intervention. Public health activists have long recognized the power that lies within communities to advance the public's health and well being, and there is a body of literature and experience from which to draw for this course. We hope this class will help students develop skills to work with effectively with communities, including both the community of our own neighbors as well as the folks that live near and are served by the agencies for which we work.

A major challenge associated with offering a course addressing community development is the range of material needing to be covered. Community development is an interest of sociologists, organization theorists, political scientists, epidemiologists and psychologists to name a few disciplines contributing to our knowledge of working with communities. Another challenge is resolving what, exactly, to call this concept: some believe the phrase "community development" is paternalistic, thus leading us to some of the political issues in the field.

This course is designed to provide students with a structured overview of community development in the health field. The course will include readings on defining and characterizing community; power and leadership dynamics in community; economic and class issues; determinants of health that relate to community; political organizing intersections with community development; community assessments; and lots of approaches and tools to use when actually DOING community development.

COURSE OBJECTIVES:

• Students will be provided with an enhanced understanding of the concept of community and the field of community development via a review of some of the literature from the various disciplines concerned with communities.
• Students will learn about, develop, and demonstrate skills to use in community development for health.
• Students will be exposed to and have discussion with successful community developers in the health field. Students will be able to analyze community issues in current events.
• Students will be able to define community and recognize its structure in a broad range of settings and situations.
• Students will develop their cultural competencies and recognize the importance of culture in working with communities.
• Students will embrace and value community activism, both in their lives as students, working professionals, and as members of their neighborhoods and society.

WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT:

This class will enable students to make a careful study of the broad range of issues involved in community development. We have only two in-person class days (Thursdays, Feb 2 and April 6, 2006 in South Campus Center 254). We will spend those days hearing from speakers, engaging in discussion, learning about and practicing techniques, and working on case studies. The readings questions and skills homeworks will be done electronically to send to instructors via e-mail.

This class has ten modules, which correspond roughly to the ten weeks of our in-person class--only you get more time to do them than students in the one-quarter class. You should complete the first three modules prior to our first meeting on February 2. You should complete each module by the deadline provided.

STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES

If you would like to request academic accommodations due to a disability, please contact Disabled Student Services, 448 Schmitz, 543-8924 (V/TDD). If you have a letter from Disabled Student Services indicating you have a disability that requires academic accommodations, please present the letter to us so we can discuss the accommodations you might need for the class.

LEARNING RESOURCES INCLUDE:

• 2 Textbooks: Meredith Minkler's "Community Organizing & Community Building for Health" and Eric Klinenberg's "Heat Wave"
• Journal articles -- Availablein the course pack we sent you.
• Two days of in-class presentations by the instructors and fellow students.
• Skill-building assignments and the readings to support them (also mailed to you).
• Study organization on which to base skill-building assignments.
• Extra credit--students desiring extra credit may choose a relevant book and write a review of it.

COURSE EXPECTATIONS:

You will be expected to:

• Read the assigned chapters, articles and case studies.
• Answer questions on the readings.
• Choose an organization to study during the quarter.
• Do modular skill-building homework assignments.
• Show up to class on time.
• Actively participate in class.
• Be creative, analytical, thoughtful, and active.
• Be prepared to participate in a year-end discussion of the readings.
• For extra credit, read a book from the list and prepare a short book report.

STUDY COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION:

Each student will select a real community-based organization in which s/he will actually participate during the quarter. The purpose of the "study organization" is to provide a real-life context and subject for class assignments. Ideally this will be an organization that you are already a part of or one where you have worked, and one that has some connection to health or a determinant of health. We want this real organization to serve as the context within which you do the readings, listen to presenters, and prepare assignments. If you have a passion for the mission of the organization, all the better to bring the academic activities to life.

Whatever your relationship to the organization, you need to pick an organization that lends itself to study through meeting attendance, participation in activities, and observation. Most of the assignments will be based in the study organization.

Here are some suggestions for a study organization:

• a community clinic
• the community council or block watch in your own community
• a school PTA or site council
• a school-based clinic
• any poverty-fighting community-based organization (e.g., Fremont Public Association, Economic Opportunity Institute, Welfare Rights Organization)

The instructors will help students select a study community, if necessary.

GRADING:

Grading is not competitive. You will be graded individually based on your demonstration of learning and advancement beyond the level at which you began the course. Our goal is to insure that your knowledge base about community development for health has been markedly expanded.

Grading will be weighted as follows:

Written assignments will be graded on how well students meet the assignment specifications, level of creativity demonstrated, and quality of writing. Answers to questions on the readings should demonstrate that the student read and understood the material. We're looking for insight, ability to make connections among the readings and to themes in the class, and quality of writing. Class participation is graded on quality of student remarks in class, demonstrating that readings were done and understood and the ability to regularly share insights without dominating.

All homework is graded as a check, a check-plus or a check-minus. Check-plus work gets a 4.0, check work is a 3.5, and check-minus is between 2.0 and 3.0, depending on the quality of the work. Basically, if you do good work on time and participate in the two in-class sessions, you should earn a 3.5 in the course.

DEPARTMENT GRADING GUIDELINES:

The Department of Health Services has established descriptive statements for numerical grades are guidelines for the assignment of grades to graduate students. See the Numerical Grade Interpretive Statement.

INSTRUCTOR AVAILABILITY:

Instructors are available to work individually with students who wish additional sources of information. E-mail is the most efficient way to contact us, either for information or to make an appointment: hagopian@u.washington.edu or phinney6@u.washington.edu . We can schedule telephone appointments to meet your needs. We are located at 4311 11th Av. NE #205, between Roosevelt and 11th Av. NE, just south of NE 45th St. Phone is 685-3676 or 616-4989; campus mailbox 354982.

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