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Participation

Involving the community

Involving the community may be the most important part of the community profiling process. If members of the community participate in appropriate ways, and the community owns the knowledge of themselves which is included in the profile, community profiling can help local self-determination and empowerment.

You should have at least one member of the community on your community profile team. Go to the Local Aboriginal Land Council, ask for their approval to conduct the community profile If there is an Aboriginal Medical Service, or Aboriginal health workers in the Area or District Health Service, contact them and ask for help and support and offer to give them a copy of your completed community profile. If there is an Aboriginal organisation which can make use of a community profile, offer to work with them and tailor your profile to include their needs as well as your own. If the organisation suggests a different format, discuss this with your lecturer.

An outline plan to maximise participation in your community profile is:

• Form a community profile team
• Look for people who can help
• Compile a directory of organisations and services
• Involve the community
• Find what information is already available
• Plan what new information is needed
• Collect information
• Write a draft profile
• Discuss the draft with the community profile team, and members of the community
• Write a final community profile.

Of course it is difficult to do all this in the time you have available, unless you form a team who can share the large amount of work which has to be done.

& Further reading:

Read Chapter 3 of Hawtin, Hughes & Percy-Smith (1994).