Improving the Effectiveness of Community-Based Interventions: Recent Lessons from Community Practice

At first glance, this issue might appear to be an eclectic bricolage of articles ranging from housing to food insecurity to community design centers. Although the topics covered in this issue are far ranging, a common theme that ties them all together is the quest for improving the effectiveness of community-based interventions. While the extant literature is replete with scholarship assessing the effectiveness of community health interventions (see for example, Institute of Medicine, 2012), scholarship about the effectiveness of other types of community interventions is more modest. Within the field of social work in general and community practice specifically, the heightened awareness of and shift toward the use of evidence-based practices in both clinical and community work is a relatively recent phenomenon (Gilgun, 2005; Community Tool Box, n.d.; Gambrill, 2008; McNeece & Thyer, 2004; Thyer, 2008). The ability to gauge such effectiveness in community practice, however, has been the subject of some debate (see Gambrill, 2008; Thyer, 2008).

Nonetheless, this call to engage in effective social change by using evidence from research and practice was underscored in 2016 with the implementation of the Grand Challenges of Social Work within the larger profession (Williams, 2016). Further, this call is beginning to be embraced through local initiatives such as “Communities in Action” in Seattle, Washington (see Haggerty et al., 2017). Yet, as Rodriguez, Ostrow, and Kemp (2017) note in their recent article,

a central issue facing contemporary social work is its seeming reticence to engage with social problems, and their solutions, beyond individual-level interventions. Social work research, we contend, must more consistently link case and cause, iteratively developing processes for bringing micro-, mezzo-, and macrostreams of information together (p. 139).

In upcoming issues of the Journal of Community Practice, we will be focusing sections of the journal on community practice specific responses to the Grand Challenges of Social Work that address the concern of linking case and cause. We begin to prime this pump in this issue by examining how work in our field is contributing to the larger debate of how to scale up from localized interventions to those targeting larger social systems.

Our two From the Field contributions in this issue describe two types of interventions aimed at addressing housing discrimination and fair housing. In “Siting Affordable Housing in Opportunity Neighborhoods: An Assessment of HUD’s Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Mapping Tool,” authors Silverman, Yin, and Patterson examine the new U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s tool designed to assist community planners and developers in mapping out fair housing options in neighborhoods offering an array of opportunities to residents. Using data for Buffalo, New York as a case example, the authors assess the extent to which the public participation process and integrated GIS technology with AFFH-T data that comprise the tool are useful in identifying potential affordable housing sites in opportunity neighborhoods. They discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the AFFH-T and offer specific recommendations as to how this tool can be further developed in order to enhance its utility in strengthening public participation, expanding advocacy for fair housing, and developing regional approaches to fair housing in order to expand opportunities available to low-income families in all U.S. communities

Molly E. Ranahan describes several examples of community-based housing solutions to address the housing needs and discrimination experienced by lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) older adults in her article, “Planning for the Residential Needs of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Older Adults.” In this exploratory qualitative study of seven community-based housing initiatives, Ranahan suggests that in addition to addressing unique issues of housing discrimination experienced by this population of older adults, future solutions need to consider other aging-related barriers and integrate housing responses that include health-care, housing, and long-term care providers. She identifies five key strategies that are effective in the creation of LGBT friendly housing for older adults. Moreover, she underscores the need to shift from single-entity housing solutions to larger community-scale approaches, such as those employed by age-friendly community initiatives, that are better able to reach socially isolated and vulnerable LGBT older adults.

In their article, “Formal and Informal Social Organization: Do Geography, Structural Inequality, and Other Forms of Social Organization Matter?” Gilster and Meier utilize a spatial econometrics approach and data from Chicago neighborhoods to examine the extent to which neighborhood structural inequality, type of social organization and spatial clustering were associated with formal and informal neighborhood social organization. Although their findings on the levels of formal and information organization within neighborhoods are mixed, the study underscores how formal and informal social organizations within a neighborhood mutually reinforce each other. Additionally, they find that organizational participation has significant spillover effects in adjacent neighborhoods. Their findings highlight the notion that neighborhood-level interventions need also to be place-conscious—taking into account the potential for such spillover effects in surrounding neighborhoods.

How those experiencing poverty see themselves and construct their sense of social class should matter to social work practitioners engaged in developing anti-poverty programs and policies, so contend Bloomquist, Wood, Sullenberger, and Hostetter in their article, “Doin’ Meth or Doin’ Math: What Client Constructions of Social Class Mean for Social Work Practice.” They argue that service providers have a tendency to blame their clients for their social class status and need to better understand service users’ views about how people become members of different social classes if they wish to create more effective, client-centered interventions and services. In their qualitative study that involved story-telling interviews with 50 people experiencing poverty, the authors learned about the individual, environmental, and structural factors affecting how poor individuals perceived themselves, the potential pathways to social mobility available to them, and the stigma and stress associated with economic hardship. These oft-ignored voices in programmatic decision-making suggest perceptions of both fate and individual choices as the factors behind their current experiences of poverty. Interviewees also note how educational attainment, marital status and work experience further shape these potential pathways of social mobility for the poor.

Heretofore, interventions addressing food insecurity as a social problem have focused primarily on individual or household solutions. Yet, what is the best level of analysis to use in order to effectively address food insecurity in the United States and elsewhere? In “Redefining Food Security in a Community Context: An Exploration of Community Food Security Indicators and Social Worker Roles in Community Food Strategies,” Michelle L. Kaiser that is the question she asks us to consider. Further, she suggests reframing this issue from the vantage point of “community food security” (CFS), arguing that with so many households feeling the impact of food insecurity a community’s viability is also threatened. Her article offers a review of the literature on food insecurity and community food security as well as discusses how community practitioners might further CFS strategies that assist communities to become more sustainable and food-secure. She notes how a focus on community food security shifts interventions from simply targeting household economic well-being to ones that are concerned with public health, self-sufficiency, cultural appropriate food choices, and the social and environmental justice issues that underlie food systems.

In “Well London: Results of a Community Engagement Approach to Improving Health Among Adolescents from Areas of Deprivation in London,” Frostick, Watts, Netuveli, Renton, and Moore share the findings from a large community-based intervention with adolescents from 20 multiply deprived neighborhoods in London. The authors describe the Well London Program, a clustered randomized controlled trial, which employed an engagement strategy whereby community residents were equally involved with professionals and volunteers in planning, developing, and implementing community wellness interventions aimed at healthy eating, physical activity, and attention to mental health among adolescents. Study findings on the outcomes of the intervention were non-significant, perhaps suggesting inadequate dose response since the identified areas of neighborhood deprivation did not reflect the boundaries of other communities of influence (e.g., actual neighborhoods of residence, schools, and peers). The authors note the importance of accounting for these other communities of influence when developing future health interventions with adolescents.

Finally, Elif Tural traces the roots of community design centers (CDCs) to the civil rights and anti-poverty movements as well as their evolution as organizations supporting community development through design, planning, public education, and advocacy services in distressed communities. In “Organizational Transformation in Community Design Centers: An Analysis through Giddens’ Theory of Structuration Framework,” the author examines CDCs within the context of their development within universities and provides a framework—Giddens’ Theory of Structuration—for assessing the processes of organizational change that transformed these technical assistance and educational organizations and the interrelated factors that influenced their successes and failures. Tural also suggests how university-based CDCs might advance a more vital and integrated role for community-based interventions attached to architectural programs.

We hope that these articles provide ideas and suggestions for improving the effectiveness of community-based interventions to address important social problems. As previously noted, we expect to publish additional articles that examine how scholars and practitioners within our field interface (or not) with the Grand Challenges of Social Work.

Since our next issue is a special issue, we also are deeply grateful for the many people who contributed their time and expertise to reviewing the manuscripts published in the first two issues of our 25th anniversary volume. We than the following reviewers for their thoughtful critiques and suggestions that strengthened these articles: Gino Aisenberg, Andrew Aurand, Elizabeth Beck, Elizabeth Bowen, Sandy Butler, Robert Chaskin, Susan Clampet-Lundquist, Casey Dawkins, Meagan Ehlenz, Janet Elder, Sondra Fogel, Darcy A Freedman, Larry M. Gant, Thomas B. Gill, Megan E. Gilster, Kari M. Gloppen, Edward G Goetz, Stephen Hincks, Leslie Irvine, Rita A. Jablonski, Mark Joseph, Bian Kimiagar, Sacha Klein, Rachel Kleit, Amy Krings, Michal Krumer-Nevo, Steven McMurtry, Joel Moll, F. Ellen Netting, Susan Ostrander, Stephany Parker, Donald C. Reitzes, Debra Ruben, Henry Sanoff, Trina R. Shanks, Micheal L. Shier, Richard Smith, Tracy M. Soska, Samantha Teixeira, Alma Trinidad, Mark Vagle, and Dawn Witherspoon.

From the Editors,